Total Mutated Revenge Of The Island
by SideshowJazz1
Summary: Alternate version of TD ROTI. When Danni Kramer is accepted onto Total Drama Revenge Of The Island, she goes there to play for fun. But her disappointment when her team loses shocks her. This provokes some changes. Cameron is voted off early. Dakota gets a proper chance on her team. And one egocentric jerk notices a cheerleader's skills...different elimination order and storylines.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I said I was just going to do Pahkitew Island. But a little voice in my head wanted me to improve Revenge of the Island. So I wrote up a plan one night, made a new female competitor to even up the girls and guys, and made the teams even more uneven because Chris has the power to make things unfair – don't worry, he'll move someone later on. So, to continue:**

 **Plot: Danni Kramer isn't a Total Drama fan, but with her brother in control of the remote, she can't escape knowing the competitors. Now that she's sixteen and the show is accepting new competitors, she's persuaded into auditioning. It's time to take a boat to an island, have fun, and maybe win a million bucks...not that Danni's expecting to win that. She's not competitive, of course not...**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing from Total Drama Revenge Of The Island. I only own Danni and the differences in elimination and interactions. All the challenges and characters other than Danni and a few others belong to Fresh TV.**

Why was I doing this? Why was I doing a handstand while my big bro Ronan was filming me, smiling while my top was in serious danger of exposing my lack of curves and my fair hair was hanging in my face? Well, you have him to thank for that. He just had to be in love with reality shows, didn't he? Especially ones with teens my age.

Yeah, like half of young Canada, Ronan had spent his time outside of his first year in college (he's nineteen and home from his gap year) watching every episode of Total Drama Island, Total Drama Action online, and now Total Drama World Tour on TV (and the finale hasn't yet aired). So I have to sit there and watch with him. And when we saw a promo asking for new competitors for a fourth season, Ronan insisted on me auditioning.

"You _have_ to do this, Danni." he'd said. "I'd do it, but they won't want someone my age. They want sixteen-year-olds, and it's not like you're doing anything this summer. It's not even for the whole summer – it's only four weeks." (Apparently there'd be challenge days and free days to get to know people).

I'd rolled my eyes at him. "Who says I'm not going to cheer camp with the rest of the squad? And why would I want to spend weeks on an island with thirteen suicidal people? I mean, you have to be suicidal to put yourself at the mercy of Chris." That was Chris McLean, the host. The host that nearly let nine teens drown in the name of a disaster movie-themed challenge, the host that let a girl freeze while stuck to a flagpole and didn't give her any water to free her tongue, even though he could spare it, the host who kept hitting on a blonde bimbo half his age, especially when she was dressed up as Wonder Woman.

But Ronan wouldn't let me say no. Okay, I wasn't going to cheer camp. I _was_ a cheerleader – not captain or anything, but part of the squad – but I ducked out of cheer camp because I didn't like it in tenth grade. Long story short, the girl-on-girl rumours about what the twelfth graders do to the younger ones were total lies, but they did leave their stuff everywhere and expected someone else to clean it up. Usually one of us. I'd probably go to cheer camp in twelfth grade, but this year, I could skip it without any repercussions. Contrary to chick flicks, us cheerleaders were just like any other clique. We all hung out together, but it didn't make us rich snobs or bitches. Rich, sort of. Snobs? Well, only if a new girl joined, and only for a little while to let them know where they were in the pecking order. I had to go through it when I joined, back in freshman year. Apart from that, we were all pretty nice. So we were popular – but everyone liked us, even if they wanted to be us.

Anyway, sorry, totally off-track. So I was smiling through a handstand while Ronan filmed my Total Drama audition tape. According to the promos, this season was going to be called Revenge Of The Island, so I guessed we'd be back at Camp Wawanakwa, where the first season took place.

"Hello!" I smiled at the camera, before flipping right side up. "I'm Danni. Okay, Danielle, but call me that and I'll throw you into the polluted ocean around the island. You really want me to prove I can be a threat? Okay!" I did a few solo cheer moves, with a bit of hip-hop thrown in (I was doing Dance as one of my main subjects in school), ending with a cartwheel and the splits.

Then, I jumped back up, still grinning. "Well, not sure if you need to see any more proof. So, Chris, call me, and I'll bring me and my moves to Total Drama!"

And surprise surprise, I was accepted. I mean, not that I expected it, but I wouldn't have bothered saying anything about it if I hadn't been accepted.

Ronan tried to give me a ton of reality show advice, but I wasn't having it. "I'm up against newbies." I pointed out. "It's not like I have to fight Heather, Courtney and Alejandro in a three-on-one battle. What are the odds there's going to be more than one person like that on the show? We can take him or her down easy, since I'm pretty sure everyone watching will know Total Drama pretty well and can watch out for it. And besides, I'm not going to play to win. I'm just going to play for fun. Sure, I'll try to win, but I'm not going to pin all my hopes on it. As long as I'm not cut first, I'll be happy, since I get to hang out and be on TV. Sorry, man, but if you want someone in our family to be a vicious reality show player, try yourself."

Ronan raised his eyebrows at me. "Whatever, Danni. You'll be sorry you didn't listen to me when you have no idea what you're doing on the show. I know the atmosphere of Total Drama better than you do."

"But you don't know a thing about the new competitors." I pointed out.

"They'll choose them in order to generate the most drama." Ronan said knowingly. "I'll bet there won't be another cheerleader in sight when you get on the boat there. But there'll probably be an alternative chick – you know, the Gwen of the season."

"Oh?" I said. "So if she's the Gwen, who am I?"

Ronan paused, looking at me, and then he said "You're the Bridgette. You're blonde, sporty and graceful. But you're not perfect. And I can tell you're going to set yourself up to be one of the heroes."

I shrugged. "Sounds good. I like Bridgette. Even better if I can find a Geoff." Yeah, I was single at the moment. Most of the girls on the cheerleading squad had boyfriends, although a shy flyer from the grade below me and one or two others didn't. I mostly claimed I didn't want a boyfriend, but that wasn't really true. I wanted a boyfriend, but I wasn't going to settle for just anyone. A few guys had asked me out, but I could tell that half of them just wanted to boast that they got to bang a cheerleader. I'd gone out with some of the others who didn't seem to have sex on the brain, but none of them had really worked out. I wanted someone good-looking, considerate, funny, sweet and someone who wanted Danni the Person, not Danni the Cheerleader.

But, Bridgette or not, what were the chances of me finding a Geoff?

 **Okay, questionnaire time, readers. I want to hear what you think about this story and how it will work.**

 **How do you think Danni will do in the show?**

 **Who do you think Danni will be friends with?  
Will Danni be in a relationship, and if yes, with who?  
And finally, given that the final two will not reflect the original, who do you think they might be?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Let's get to the show! Thanks for all your predictions and reviews, Nicky Haugh, OmniPlanckInstant, Gage the Hedgehog, SuperKitty4789, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse and the guest reviewer.**

 **Also, on the subject of predictions...well, you'll have to wait and see. Interestingly enough, the predictions that weren't in my plans were all on the same question, while the correct ones also were. But I'm not going to say what they were yet...**

Although we had to go to the island on a boat ourselves, we didn't have to bring our luggage with us. Apparently, it went through on another boat early, so it would be dumped at the campground, then we could arrange it how we liked once we were split into teams and cabins.

As for the competitors...I met all thirteen of the others on the boat to the island. Most of them looked all right. I mean, they looked normal enough. None of them seemed to be a Sierra type, thank God. The girls were: A redhead with a flower dressed hipster-style, a dreamy pale blonde, an envy-inspiring blonde beauty in all-pink (Yeah, my top was pink, but my denim shorts were dark blue and my sandals were white), an Italian-Canadian girl with an orange fake tan and puffy hair, a pear-shaped girl with a voice like nails on a chalkboard, and a sporty tomboyish type in sweats. The boys consisted of: a redhead with too many freckles everywhere but his face, a black guy in sports clothes, a guy with lots of spiky gravity-defying hair, a teeny tiny black guy who looked about twelve years old, a guy with lots of curly hair who was glued to his game console, a large guy who seemed chill but unwilling to talk, and a boy who looked like he was meant to be going to a camp on an army base.

I was standing on the top deck, surveying everyone and watching as we approached the island. The only other person on the top deck was the really little one.

There was a speaker on the boat. It was basically there to let us know when to give up our introductory line. Chris was already standing on the dock on the island, but the speaker would tell us what he was saying, and each person would have to say an establishing line as their name was said.

"Meet Jo..." he began.

This turned out to be the girl in sweats. "Stay out of my way if you value your kiwis." she warned the red-haired boy.

"Scott..."

"Right back at ya." he replied.

"Zoey, and Mike!" This turned out to be the hipster girl and the boy with the spiky hair.

"Can you believe we're here?" Zoey said excitedly, nudging Mike.

"Yeah, it's...beautiful..." Mike replied, although his eyes were all on her. Huh, looked like love at first sight. I didn't know that existed (although I will admit when I first started watching Total Drama Island, I thought I was in love with Trent...the reason I now knew I wasn't was cause I didn't get jealous when he and Gwen started dating).

"Lightning!"

The sporty guy literally knocked Zoey and Mike either way and stood exactly where they were a minute ago. "Hello, gorgeous!" he announced, and kissed one of his (extensive) biceps.

"Brick!"

This turned out to be the army guy, who'd caught Zoey. He dropped her and saluted. "Brick MacArthur, reporting for duty!" Wow, he even sounded like an army cadet.

"B..."  
This was the large quiet guy. He just grinned and moved a little to indicate who he was.

"And Dawn."

This turned out to be the pale blonde. She was sitting on the railings, and as her name was said, she touched B's shoulder and said "Your aura is exceptionally purplish-green. Oh, it suits you, though!" So we had a New Age girl among us. Maybe Ronan was right and she was balancing me out.

"Dakota!"

Everyone so far had been on the lower deck. The camera had clearly moved up to the middle deck, since the girl directly below me had been called. It was the willowy blonde with the pink clothes straightened up and smiled. "Hey there!" She giggled and waved. "Dakota here, and I'm here to-"

But the camera had moved on. "Anne Maria!"

The Italian-Canadian girl. She was busy with hairspray. "Three more coats oughta do it." she commented out loud.

Suddenly, Dakota rushed in, pushed Anne Maria out of the way, and snapped at the camera "Whoa, who said you could pan away?"

"Don't push me, blondie!" Anne Maria yelled back, shoving Dakota and spraying her.

"Staci..."

This turned out to be the pear-shaped girl. Yeah, she'd already been talking before, but it hadn't made much sense. Her establishing line made just as little sense. "My Great-Aunt Millie invented sun tans. Yeah, before her, people smeared themselves with clay." Anne Maria gave her the benefit of her spray can, too.

"Danni..."

My turn! "Thanks for turning that girl's voice off!" I yelled down. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine." Anne Maria glanced up at me and we exchanged smiles.

There were still a couple left, so I heard Chris say "Cameron..."

That turned out to be the boy standing next to me, the little one. He was staring around him in wonder. "Fresh air!" he exclaimed. "A real lake! Birds!" Then he overbalanced when a flock of pigeons flew past and fell down to one of the lower levels, where the video game player was still absorbed in his game.

"...and Sam!"

It turned out Mr Gamer had been paying more attention than I thought, since when his name was announced, he exclaimed "Oh yeah, grenade launcher upgrade! Now we're cooking!"

And seconds later, guess what happened? Yeah, our boat blew up. We had to swim most of the way to shore. I didn't really pay attention to anyone else, but I could hear voices. Not everyone, but a bunch of the contestants.

"Is this what pain tastes like?"

"Chris is _so_ getting a beatdown for this!"

"Outta the way, athelete coming through!"

"I'll save you, little girl!"

"I'm a boy!"

I didn't hear much after that, as I was busy swimming. I wasn't particularly fast on land, but I had crazy upper body strength from all the pyramids and holding the flyers on the squad, so I was actually pretty fast.

I was third to the shore. At first I thought I was second, but I was soon disullusioned. I heard Jo cheering. "Yes! That's what I'm talking about! First one on the..." her voice trailed off, and I followed her gaze to Dawn, who was sittng cross-legged on a rock. "How did you...you're not even wet!"

"Hm?" Dawn looked up. "Oh! I used a shortcut."

.. _.What?_ Maybe she wasn't just New Age, like I thought. Maybe her aura thing was actually some kind of magic that also enabled her to teleport. Jo was right – she was completely dry as well as being first to the shore.

After that, Brick struggled to shore, followed by B, who had Cameron standing on his head. No, seriously, he walked out of the water with Cameron on top of him.

One by one, everyone else arrived.

"So stoked to be here." Zoey gushed. "I've been watching Total Drama for ever! Who knows, maybe I'll even make some new friends."

"Yes," Dawn agreed, "That would be good considering you're an only child and all."

Zoey looked disconcerted. "Who told you that?"

"Your soul reads like an open book." Dawn said. Her voice became sympathetic. "You had such a lonely childhood. It must have been difficult."

Poor Zoey. She looked so embarrassed, so I tried to take the heat off her. "So you can read souls?" I asked her. "What does mine say?"

Dawn paused, looked at me, and then said "You're going to have to hold back a little bit if you want to stick to your morals in the next few weeks."

I blinked. Somehow, just by looking at me, Dawn had picked out something about me that I barely knew myself. I had a tendency to throw myself into situations, and this game would be no exception. Basically, she was saying that if I wanted to be one of the good guys of the game, I couldn't put everything I had into my gameplay. Well, whatever. Only time would tell if she was right.

One of the island loudspeakers buzzed with Chris' voice. "Attention, fresh meat! See the trail into the forest? Race to the end of the trail and do NOT disturb the wildlife. That would be bad."

"Yeah, we wouldn't wanna upset the bunnies!" Lightning laughed, nudging Sam.

"The tiniest sound can set them off," added the loudspeaker. "Like, THIS!" An air horn sounded, followed by an animalistic, horror flick worthy roar, which sent us all bolting for the trail.

Like I said, I wasn't exactly quick on land. My upper body strength way outweighed my speediness. It's why I wore flats to the island. By the time I arrived, Chris was putting everyone into teams.

"Cheerleader stereotype, Team A." he ordered, pointing to where Scott, Lightning, Dawn, B and Dakota were standing. "Tan in a can, Team B." he added as Anne Maria arrived. Finally were Sam and Staci (the latter of who was still babbling about some great-great of hers). "Yo, game junkie, Team A. And chatty Staci, Team A."

I spoke up. "First, I'm not a cheerleader stereotype, I just said what I did on the boat because Staci had already been talking for a while. And second, how come there's eight people on our team? It's not really fair, is it?" I pointed over to the other team, which consisted of Jo, Cameron, Mike, Zoey, Brick and Anne Maria. Six people. There was no reason the teams couldn't be seven on seven.

Chris shrugged. "I guess things just worked out that way. Life isn't fair."

"More importantly," Scott said, "What the heck was that thing in the forest?"

"I'm pretty sure that cry does not belong to any known animal species." Cameron added fearfully.

"Relax, it'll all make sense eventually." Chris shrugged. Then he began laughing. And I don't mean normally. That laugh basically turned him into a cartoon supervillain for a minute.

Then he got down to explaining the new rules of the show. You know, new cast, new rules, yadda yadda. First, someone would be eliminated after every challenge, like in the first season. Second, we did have one piece of luck. He had an immunity idol – a carving of his head – which would be hidden somewhere on the island. Whoever found it would be allowed to play it after they were voted off, making those votes null and void and getting whoever got the second most votes turfed.

Then, it was time to hear the team names. Chris christened our Team the "Toxic Rats" and the other team the "Mutant Maggots."

Mike was the one to ask the question on everyone's minds. "What's with all the references to chemical waste?"

Yeah, as it turned out, Chris had rented the island to a hazardous waste disposal company. And now...well, the toxic waste had mutated a bunch of the animals and plants. As it was, we met a squirrel who blinked vertically, could shoot lasers, and had a frog-like tongue so it could eat butterflies.

So this was going to be my summer. Stuck on a mutated island with thirteen people I didn't know, plus a psycho host and his psycho sidekick (yeah, I forgot to mention Chef Hatchet. I wondered where he was). Joy.

 **I thought I'd cut off the chapter before the challenge starts. Sorry, not too much difference until the votes begin. Let's keep going next time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Right. Challenge time! Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14 (don't worry, I have plans for her), Nicky Haugh (despite not being on the same team, there'll be interaction), Bloodylilcorpse (I think she's the first character I've made who can stand Anne Maria at all), OmniPlanckInstant (that's one of the reasons I made her a cheerleader – she's not fast at running, but has a lot of upper-body strength and can do basic acrobatic moves), Gage the Hedgehog (your review was too generic for me to give you a bracketed answer) and SuperKitty4789 (I'm not planning to make her another Julie – there's no point in doing the same character over again).**

Our first challenge involved explosives again. We had team totem poles hooked up, suspended from the trees, with time bombs attached.. Our job was to cut them down and get them to the campgrounds before the time ran out, which meant we had only seven minutes to cut and run. First team there got their pick of the cabins.

And as it turned out, even though our first teammate was chosen first, Jo had been the first to the end of the trail, so her team got a trampoline, plus their totem pole had a tiny axe embedded in it. As for us, we got a hacksaw.

Lightning offered to climb the nearest tree to get to the rope. Well, he was more like "Stand back! Lightning is on it!" Then he fell straight down. "Dang, slippery tree. Don't worry, Lightning never quits!" Okay, that was interesting. He apparently liked to talk in third person.

While Staci started babbling again, B was observing thoughtfully. He suddenly smiled and started gathering a few things together. Eventually, he made a log into a kind of seesaw, then led Staci to one end of it. "Oh, okay." she said. "You want me on this thing?"

Then he led Sam to the side of the tree, pointing to the spot. "Whoa, hey! You want me to stand here?"

Then, B jumped on the other end of the seesaw, sending Staci flying...onto Sam's shoulders.

I paused. "A human column, and the one at the top cuts the rope..." I said slowly. I grinned at B. "Great idea!"

We had Scott on Staci's shoulders, Lightning on Scott's shoulders, me on Lightning's shoulders, and finally Dawn on my shoulders. Then B literally had to pick up Dakota and set her on the seesaw, because she was too busy. See, apparently she'd been texting a bunch of paparazzi people to come to the island and take photos of her. Chris wasn't too happy about that either, so once he'd gotten rid of them, Dakota was on Dawn's shoulders, level with the rope. We passed up the hacksaw quickly. Still, she started trying to saw from the wrong side. "It won't work!"

"Teeth down on the rope!" Sam called up. "Down!"

"No, girl, you cannot be that dumb!" Lightning exclaimed.

"Pretend it's Daddy's steak knife." Dawn suggested.

Apparently this was helpful advice, as Dakota cut the rope down in seconds. Yeah, we totally got the major advantage. The Maggots had already gone with their totem pole, but only because a squirrel and its laser eyes had helped them out.

Sam grinned. "B, change your name to A-plus!"

And with that, we rode our way to the campground. At first, it looked like there was no way we could beat the Maggots. They were way ahead. Then B, who was at the front, made a motion. I didn't get it, but then I was right at the back, just in front of Staci.

"B wants us to lean forward!" Dawn called to the rest of us. We all obeyed, as Staci began babbling yet again. The gravity worked well, as we heard Jo yelling "Hey, how did they get in front of us?!"

We reached the campground with ten seconds to spare, but we had to put our log on a stump to claim our cabin. One of them was the same one from the first season. The other looked...actually not that bad. Of course we claimed the good one – hey, there were eight of us. The other six could stand Roach Central until the merge...not that any of them were staying for long.

Okay, look, it was totally not our fault that we had to go to elimination that night. The Maggots should have lost. I mean, you know what happened? They crashed into our cabin, as well as having their totem pole blow up because they were out of time. So not only did we have our awesome place replaced with the twin to the crappy one, we also lost because we lost our cabin. So not fair!  
At least we had a clear choice to vote off. Well, two, but I knew which one I'd rather keep around.

We had the afternoon to settle into our cabins. "Wonder whether this belonged to the Gophers or the Bass." I mused.

Dawn looked at the cabin intently. "I think it housed the Gophers."

We chose bunks quickly. Dakota and Staci took one, and Dawn and I took the other. "Isn't this the same bunk Heather and Lindsay had?" I wondered, remembering Heather trying to get on Bridgette's good side by giving her Lindsay's bed. "Which bunk do you want, Dawn?"

I ended up taking the top. I sort of suspected that the reason Dawn wanted the bottom bunk was because it hadn't been where Heather was sleeping. That made sense – if this was the Bass cabin, I wouldn't really want to take the bed Courtney had originally claimed.

I went to the confessional before elimination, to get my bearings. "Ronan, I am going to murder you. Why did you have to persuade me to get on this show? If my teammates don't vote for Staci with me tonight, she is going to drive me insane. I like B. but I don't really know how to communicate with someone who doesn't talk. Dawn's okay, but a little weird, and it seems like Dakota's only here so she can be on TV. Show-off. I don't know about the other guys, but I hope they'll be OK, and as for the other team...well, I better last past the merge now I'm here, that's all I'm gonna say."

The elimination was mostly a no-brainer. However, there was one surprise in store for us. Everyone on the team got a marshmallow. However, the loser's marshmallow was a radioactive little devil, so...yeah, another reason not to lose this show.

One by one, Chris called the names of the safe players. "Scott. B. Danni. Lightning. Dawn. And Sam." I gratefully caught my marshmallow, debating whether to eat it or save it for a day when Chef's cooking became worse than it already was. Yeah, dinner hadn't exactly been edible, but I'd choked enough down to live on.

In the end, I put the marshmallow in my mouth, watching as the last two girls waited for their name to be called.

"And the Marshmallow of Toxic Loserdom goes to..." Staci had her fists clenched, looking seriously worried. Dakota was dialing a number on her phone, looking totally confident. Well, I guess she had reason.

Chris finally called the name. "...Staci."

"Aw, but I was doing so good!" the chatterbox complained. She caught the marshmallow, and all her mouse hair promptly fell out.

It was even worse than I thought. Not only did Staci lose her place in the game, and all her hair, but the new way home was by...catapult. Yeah, seriously. To get home, you had to sit in a giant catapult, get launched into the air by Chris, and apparently, that was legal.

I walked back to the cabin with my teammates, said goodnight to the guys, and went into my side of the cabin with Dawn and Dakota. Huh, Triple D. Interesting.

My first night on the island ended with me lying on my bunk, reading a book. Not a very promising start, but hey, at least I was still here!

To be honest, I was surprised how disappointed I was at being in the first team to lose. I mean, no team had never lost a member in their time, but being in the team who lost first was actually quite sobering. I wasn't a competitive person, right? So why was I so upset about it?

 **Not too much difference yet, I know, but just wait. There's plenty of other people who can get kicked out of the game early! I know Staci was off first last time, but seriously, is there any reason to keep her?**

 **Also, with Danni's mention of which bunks the characters had, Dawn is shown in Episode 2 on bunks that were on the same side as Heather and Lindsay's. This doesn't stay constant, as in Episode 4, she is shown on a bunk that is in the same position as Gwen's bed, but either way, I'm going to stick to the story that she had Lindsay's bed, and Danni had Heather's. Dakota had Gwen's, and if Staci had been staying, she would've slept in Leshawna's...or was it Beth's? I think it showed them both.**


	4. Chapter 4

**All right. As I mentioned in the first chapter, the game is for four weeks...less, actually. So I'll be covering some of the free days. There'll always be one in between challenges, so the game stretches past three weeks – that is, 24 days, since there won't be a break in between the semifinals and the finale.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14, OmniPlanckInstant, SuperKitty4789, Nicky Haugh, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse and PokemonFTW.**

It was lucky we had a free day next. It gave me a chance to get over our team's loss, and start thinking about why we lost. I had to admit, I felt both better and worse that it was Chris' skewed rules. He was in control of who won, which made me feel worse. But it was nothing to do with our team being incompetent, which made me feel a lot better. I just wished I liked my teammates more.

I spent the day making sure I knew everyone's names and remembered who they were by sight. By the end of the day, though, I started to wish I was on the Maggots. Of course, I'd have to share a cabin with Jo, Anne Maria and Zoey, but I liked all of them except Jo. Their men didn't seem too bad, either. Mike was very outgoing and open, Cameron was a total sweetheart, and Brick, despite his army boy getup, was more of an honourable cadet than a drill sergeant.

That's not to say I didn't like our team. Dakota was a bit annoying, since she acted like a diva, but she was usually okay, just texting on her phone and occasionally joining in on the conversation. Dawn was quiet, too. She meditated a lot, but when she did speak, she was always nice. She didn't spend much time around the rest of us, though. She disappeared halfway through the day, and Scott said he'd seen her sitting in lotus position in the forest. Well, he didn't say lotus position, but I got the idea. Dawn really got along with the animals.

The men were mostly okay. I mean, Lightning pretty much ignored me, but Sam was all right, and B, despite his silence, seemed friendly enough. I didn't know why, exactly, but something about Scott turned me off. Maybe it was his redneck thing. I'd always been a city girl, and he was way past even the most redneck of hillbillies. I mean, he actually admitted out loud that he'd eat dirt if he got too hungry. Plus he took literally two seconds showering. I'm betting he didn't use much soap. Gross! But he seemed all right apart from that.

In fact, the very next day, I was woken up with some twittering below me. It was a bird, apparently saying something to Dawn. "Really?" she said. "Oh no!"

"Will you keep it down?" Dakota whined from her bunk. "If I don't get my beauty sleep, I'll lose it."

"Yes, because your need for fame is really a depressed cry for love." Dawn stated matter-of-factly. I blinked and looked down at my fellow blonde, who was apparently hanging upside down from my bunk.

Dakota still had her face mask on, but anyone could have read her defensive stance. "Who told you that? My therapist?"

"I see people's auras," Dawn explained, "And it looks like someone threw up on yours."

"Oh, go eat a worm!" Dakota snapped, pulling a pillow over her head.

The bird, taking Dakota's words literally, offered one. "Um, no thanks." Dawn said.

I leaned over my bunk and spoke up. "Dawn, did you need to say that? I'm pretty sure Dakota wasn't ready to hear that, and I'm betting she's worried that one of us is going to let the rest of the campground know what you just said. Not that I'm going to say a word, by the way."

"I wasn't planning on saying anything to anyone else either." Dawn answered. "All I did was say what I saw. It wasn't supposed to be an insult."

I sighed. "Whatever. I believe you, but you should probably not keep saying things like that. People don't like you knowing stuff they keep quiet."

Dakota said nothing, but I heard a sound of frustration from under her pillow. I slipped out of bed and went to the showers, getting ready for the morning, and the challenge that would come with it. After that, I had enough time for a confessional, and since the outhouse was empty, I took my chance.

"I'm starting to think I would've done better on the Maggots. I mean, my team's okay...but I don't really think I get along with them. Dakota's a complete diva, Dawn makes me nervous, Scott's kind of a weirdo, Lightning has no time for anyone else anyway, and...well, B and Sam are fine. I don't have anything in common with Sam, though. Video games aren't my thing. And I don't really know how to communicate with B."

We didn't get breakfast, that day. Chris called us all together in front of the cabins for the challenge, and Lighting pointed it out.

"Lighting hasn't had his DPA!" We all looked at him blankly. "Daily protein allotment, duh!"

"And I haven't had enough beauty sleep!" added Dakota, who had her sunglasses on.

"Come on," Sam began to her, "You look – GREAT SUNS OF ORION!" Dakota startled him when she took off her sunglasses, proving that her eyes were pretty red.

Chris pointed us in the direction of the "Bay Of Dismay", then took Dakota's cellphone and the game console Sam had on him. Well, to be fair, they shouldn't have been using them in front of Chris. Of course he was going to confiscate them. They'd be lucky to get them back after the show was over.

As we left, some teammates walked together, some walked with the other team. I could hear Mike and Zoey talking further up and exchanging smiles, and Sam was trying to apologize to Dakota for his reaction to her red eyes.

Then there was me. I was walking between B and Anne Maria. "So what do you think the challenge is gonna be?" the latter asked.

I shrugged. "Beats me. I hope it's going to include acrobatics. That's my strong suit. I'm on the cheerleading squad at home."

Anne Maria looked at me critically. "Yeah, I should've guessed. You look like a cheerleader."

"I'm not one of those high school movie bitchy ones." I was quick to add.

Anne Maria shrugged. "Whatever. I might like you better if you were. Maybe I'll like you anyway, though."

"What do you think the challenge'll be, anyway?" I asked her.

"I dunno. I just hope it doesn't involve swimming. If it involves getting my hair ruined, I'm out."

It didn't involve swimming, anyway. We had to sit in two sets of bleachers just above the water, one team on either side. We also got strapped in with too-small harnesses. First of all, Chris would ask an embarrassing question about a contestant. If the person owned up by pushing the buzzer in front of them, they'd get their team a point. If no one owned up, we'd get dunked. Which happened to the Maggots as a demonstration.

They seemed really shaken when they came back up. "There's some kind of two-legged shark monster down there!" Mike exclaimed.

"You mean Fang?" Chris said calmly. "It turns out toxic waste can mess with stuff underwater, too. Who knew?"

Then Chris explained how the other team could steal a point. If no one owned up on one team, the other team could try to guess who it was. If they got it right, they got the point. If they got it wrong, they got dunked. Then he demonstrated on us.

Fang was pretty threatening, not gonna lie. I think he was planning to eat anyone who got dunked for long enough.

But, anyway, it was out of my hands until Chris asked an embarrassing question that applied to me.  
Well, I did keep my team out of the water for one round. Chris asked the first question, for my team. "Whose skirt blew up during a sports game, showing her whole school her lacy pink panties?"

I blushed, but pushed the button, getting an electric shock. "Ow! First, how did you know that happened, and second, how do you know what colour and style I was wearing? You're a total creep!"

"Hey, don't blame me if someone from your school put it on YouTube, Danni." Chris shrugged. "We always check out the contestants." He moved on to the Maggots' question. "Who wet their pants on the first and last day of school?"

Okay, I was maybe lucky. And brave. It wasn't until Jo noticed him sweating and called him out that Brick owned up. I couldn't blame him. Lacking bladder control was way more embarassing than having panties show for a few seconds, especially since at least mine were pretty but not slutty.

It was our team's turn again. "Whose name is really Beverly?"

"That's not an embarrassing question!" Brick protested. "Who cares if a girl's real name is Beverly?" I was sitting between Scott and Dawn, who seemed unpertubed. I glanced up to look at Dakota. She didn't seem bothered, either. But B, sitting next to her. looked as if he was about to die. Eventually, he pushed the button and raised his hand.

"Correct, _Beverly_!" Chris laughed. "Rats get the point! But I would've preferred a verbal response."

"But B never talks!" Dawn protested. "Just look at his aura!"

"Can he talk?" I whispered to Dawn.

"I don't know that." she whispered back. "He probably can."

Chris dunked us anyway. I mean, we got the point, but he still got to dunk us. Not to mention, I was right – Fang nearly had Scott for brunch. Luckily, he clambered back up.

"Thanks for leaving me down there, _team_." he snarled, getting all up in my face, since I was nearest. He undid his harness. "You can win this stupid challenge without me."  
"If he's not playing, than I'm not either!" Anne Maria called out.

"Can we just drop out once we've already been humiliated?" I asked. "If so, I'm out. C'mon, B."

"Okay, everybody just settle down!" Chris called out, but everyone ignored him.

"I'm with Anne Maria, we should stop." Mike spoke up. "Not that I've got any secrets to hide..." he added nervously.

Jo cuffed him. "Sit _down_ , Pointy, I'm not losing this game!"

"Whoa, take it easy!" Zoey protested.

No one was listening to Chris. Everyone was arguing over whether we should quit the challenge or not. Since I'd had my turn, I wanted to leave, but then again, I thought the only other people who should leave were B and Brick. And I couldn't help wondering why Mike seemed so much more nervous about his embarrassing secret than the rest of us. How bad could it be?

And you know what? We never finished the challenge after that. Chris was pretty cross with us. Oh well, he seemed to be looking forward to Part 2 of the challenge, so whatever.

This time, as we went to the location of Part 2, the teams stuck with each other. Since Sam was talking to Dakota about their tech-withdrawal and Scott was talking to Lightning, I walked with Dawn.

"So," I said hesitantly, "Brutal challenge, huh? So nerve-wracking."

"No one thinks any less of you for that incident Chris mentioned." Dawn said serenely.

I sighed. "I didn't mean for me. I meant being dunked or waiting to have an embarrassing secret coming out at any second."

Dawn looked thoughtful. "I suppose that's true. I don't know what Chris would have had in store for me, but Fang was hungry, because there's so few fish in Lake Wawanakwa. I don't blame him for that, but Chris knew that he would try to eat one of us."

"How did you know why Fang was so desperate to eat?" I asked. "I mean, it was obvious he was hungry, but the reasons?"

"Every creature has an aura." Dawn explained. "I could see hunger and desperation in Fang's."

I changed my mind about Dawn. While her knowledge of other people was still...disconcerting, she obviously meant well, and she was a nice person. Apart from B, she was the only teammate I could see myself becoming friends with. And since B didn't talk...well...okay. If I wanted a friend and/or ally on this show, I'd be happy to stick with Dawn. And with her skills, I was pretty sure she'd be around for a while, and I had no intention of leaving too early.

Our second challenge was basically a relay based on that Wipeout reality show where a bunch of people run an obstacle course. One person would try to avoid a giant mechanical boot and hop across a bunch of platforms. Then the next player would try to avoid the cannonballs flying at them to get to the end, handing off to the third player, who had to walk across a rolling pin beam, while avoiding the wrecking ball coming at them. The fourth player would also platform-hop, but this time, mutant beavers would be gnawing at the supports. The fifth player had to get across four red balls that were coming up and down, and finally, the last player would have to swing into a giant mitt, avoiding all the baseball bats around it.

Well, okay, Chris had fancy names for all the obstacles, but I didn't really pay attention to most of them.

Six obstacles. But we had seven players.

"So does someone from our team have to sit out?" I asked innnocently (not that I wanted to – I was hoping to get the fifth obstacle).

"Oh, no, no, no." Chris laughed. "No one gets to sit out. Since you asked, you'll have to do the same obstacle with someone."

Chris got to choose who was on what obstacle, though. I ended up on the last obstacle, referred to as the "Grand Slam", with Dakota.

Oh, and one more thing. Chris wanted to make things more difficult for the losing team in the last challenge. Since no one won, we all took the penalty – glasses that made everything out of focus. So there I was, standing by a diva who just looked like a pink blur with blonde hair, waiting my turn at a crazy obstacle. Cameron, who was up for the other team, stood next to us.

I couldn't see that far, but I knew Lightning and Anne Maria were right at the other end, ready to get our relay batons (that is, a mutant creature in the name of our team – we got a rat, and the other team got a giant maggot). I couldn't see Dawn or Brick, either, but I knew they were dodging the cannons. I could just about make out Scott and Jo if I squinted, and although they were blurry, I could just about see B and Zoey ready. It was easiest to see Sam and Mike, who were nearest to us. Lucky them, getting that obstacle.

We got off to a bad start. Even without being able to see properly, I heard an exclamation of pain and Chris' running announcement. "And Lightning gets the boot!" I could just about see a figure jumping across the platforms, which had to be Anne Maria.

A couple of minutes later, I heard Chris say "The Rats take the lead! Hold on!" A cannon fired, too far to see, but since I saw a small figure reaching Scott, I knew it had to have missed Dawn.

Scott had already landed on the platform between the gangplank B had to cross and the rolling pin when I heard Jo yelling at Brick. "Faster, Soggy Pants! Go, go go!"

Brick's delay had put us in the lead, but for some reason, B had to motion for Scott to give him the rat several times before he actually did. Zoey was still halfway across the gangplank (and had fallen off, possibly to be mutant chow) when B handed to Sam.

Sam had my full attention as he went across the balls. As he got near to the last one, he called out "Dakota, Danni – take it!" I tried to reach as he fell through the gap between the platform and the last obstacle, but missed. Dakota didn't even try, too busy staring at herself in her compact.

And after that, our lead was shortened since the rat scampered off and Sam had to catch it. I would've helped, but to be honest, I wasn't sure how I'd get back on the platform after.

And I wouldn't have missed seeing Mike crossing the balls for anything. Of course, I couldn't see him properly, but I heard him. "You can do this, c'mon..." he was saying. Then suddenly, he drew breath sharply, and he practically pranced across the platform to the balls, saying in a false high-pitched voice with a Russian accent (you know, pronounced Ws as Vs and all that jazz) "Wrong! Only one person can do this – Svetlana, the Olympic queen of gymnastics!" Then he got across the balls with absolutely no problems. But when Cameron asked him how he did that, Mike was back to his normal self, and didn't even seem to think anything strange had happened.

Sam finally gave us the rat, but Dakota took one look at it and cringed. "Ew! Can you at least wipe it off?"

"Screw that." I said, putting the rat under one arm and dragging Dakota with my other hand before Cameron even reached the rope.

Dakota smiled at the camera. "Well, Dakota fans, here goes nothing!" The two of us took the rope, but I had to do all the work revving up to make a long swing. Well, we hit a bat, but it did "bat" us straight into the mitt, so...I guess my tactic won the challenge?

Not only did we win immunity, but we also got McLean brand soap products, so any mud we'd gotten on us was going to be gone within seconds (although I felt sorry for the Maggots, since they had maggot vomit and slime on them as well as mud). Okay, Dakota wanted pretty much all the female products, but I forced her to give some to me. Dawn didn't seem to mind, since she hadn't gotten muddy anyway.

There was still one problem. The paparazzi was still showing up all the time to take photos of Dakota.

So just before the bonfire ceremony, I went to see Chris.

"Danni." he acknowledged. "It's not your team's turn here tonight."

I shrugged. "Yeah, I know. I wanted to ask you a favour. It's about Dakota's paparazzi. Isn't there a way you can stop them showing up?"  
Chris' face lit up. "I've already thought of that. I'm in the process of getting a restraining order on them right now – from here on in until the season is over. I won't have to worry after that, since I'm not planning on bringing Dakota back for another season."

I raised an eyebrow. "Not even if she wins? And are you supposed to be telling me that kind of thing?"

Chris shrugged. "Whatever. Now go back and join your team. I have a ceremony to host."

When the Maggots returned to their cabin later that night, I checked out who had gone. All the girls were still there. That was the first thing I noticed.

The second thing I noticed was that there was no member of the team significantly smaller than the others.

My victory had caused Cameron's downfall.

 **Ugh, I really don't like this chapter. My writing feels choppy, but I kept rewriting it and rewriting it, so it's going to stay this way.**

 **Also, major SORRY to all Cameron fans. He's my favourite Gen 2 male, but I felt like he had the least importance in this particular story, plus I wasn't planning on keeping the same finalists, so he had to go. And since it was Dakota's fault they lost in this episode, not Scott's, I figured Danni could rectify that and have them win.**


	5. Chapter 5

**All right! Icicles, and remember that I hinted Danni would be in a relationship? Read on, hungry fans! Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14, OmniPlanckInstant, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, Gage the Hedgehog, Emma, Bloodylilcorpse and PokemonFTW.**

I felt a lot more positive about my team by the end of the free day. Mainly because I spent most of the day hanging out with Dawn and B. With Dawn around, she could translate for B, and by the end of the day, all three of us had decided to stick together.

It didn't mean that we wouldn't look out for Sam, Dakota, Scott and Lightning, though. It was just that the three of us would stay loyal to each other, even after the merge.

"So what were you guys planning to do with the money?" I asked. "I only came on here cause my brother talked me into it, but I guess I could put the money into my college fund. And blow maybe ten grand on a shopping spree, or a celebration with the squad."

"I always planned to donate the money to help Mother Earth." Dawn replied.

I sighed. "Boy, you know how to make a girl feel shallow." I muttered.

Dawn laughed. "Although I don't understand much about life away from nature, you showed a lot of maturity with the college fund thing. What about you, B?" The silent one made some motions, and Dawn nodded, and translated back to me "Part of it in a college fund, too. The rest would be used on building the ultimate computer."

I was impressed. "Wow, B! I should've guessed you were an inventor with the see-saw thing. Do you make stuff like that often? And I'm guessing you're a tech angel, too." B blushed a little, but nodded at the invention question.

"We are so totally lucky to have you on our team." I grinned. And I meant every word.

I went to the confessional at the end of the free day. "Things are definitely looking up." I told the camera. "I still like more Maggots than Rats, but now that I've gotten over Dawn seeing all those things no one else knows of, I like her fine. And B's always been great, really friendly and chill, despite not talking. If all of us make it to the final three, it would be, like, the kindest final three in Total Drama history. Oh, just imagine the look on Chris' face if that happened!" I laughed like crazy for a moment. Then I added "Not that I don't want that final three, though. That would be awesome."

The day wasn't completely pleasant, though. I had to confront Dakota on not trying in the challenges. She was sitting on the dock, trying to get her backup phone to work. It had gotten waterlogged during the embarrassing trivia game.

"Hey, Dakota?" I said. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Uh-huh." Dakota mumbled, not looking up from her phone.

I flung myself down next to her. "Okay, I'll just say it: You need to try harder in challenges. If we'd lost yesterday's challenge, it would've been on you, since we had much more of a lead before it got to us. The only reason we're both still here is because I made you swing with me. If you want to stay on the show, try harder. And oh, by the way, Chris said he's getting a restraining order on the paparazzi, so they won't be here for you to pose for anyway."

This did get Dakota's attention. "What? _Seriously?_ " She scowled. "I can't believe it! I guess if I want my spin-off, I'll have to win this." She looked up at me, and added "I can't make any promises. But if you think working harder is the only way to stop everyone from voting me off, I guess I could."

I discussed team strategy with my friends, too. When I'd brought up Dakota's lack of willingness to try, Dawn looked troubled. "It might be a good idea to vote off Dakota, whether she tries or not." she said in a low voice. "A great darkness is surrounding her. If she stays on the island, disaster will befall her."

I frowned. "How long does she have to stay on the island for something to happen to her?"

"I don't know." Dawn answered. "Her aura doesn't tell me how long it will be, but I _think_ she'll be fine for a few more days at least." So if Dakota did what I said, we wouldn't need to vote her off straightaway.

The next day began with disgusting gruel, and a lot of really interesting discussion. I watched the other team, where Jo and Brick were competing so much about eating that Brick nearly choked on his spoon and Jo had to give him the Heimlich manouver.

After that, I heard Jo asking Mike about his Russian gymnast impression. She sounded a little awed, to be honest, as she asked "How do you summon such strength and precision?"

Mike sounded like he didn't really want to talk about it, but he replied nervously "I, uh, rehearse a lot in front of my mirror."

At that moment, Lightning started choking. Another Heimlich manouver, only this time, it was Dawn dislodging a roach from Lightning's throat.

"Whoa, that was a close one!" Lightning commented. "Thanks, creepy girl."

Dawn had just picked up the roach, and she glanced up. "Hm? For what?" She stroked the roach and said "You're safe now, little one."

"She was trying to save what you were choking on, not you." I explained to the jock. "You were very lucky that it meant saving both of you. Although..." I paused and looked over at Dawn. "How did you know what Lightning was choking on?"

"I heard its distress calls, of course." Dawn said. "I can usually tell if a creature was in distress, and this one was terrified."

At that moment, a mutated mouse – or was it a rat? - started lasering everything, so we had to abandon breakfast anyway. And the minute all of us were out, the speakers called us. "Attention, players! Please head directly to the looming tragedy that is Mt Looming Tragedy! Your race begins...now!"

Yeah, I'm thinking Chris probably sent that thing in there and somehow got someone to provoke it so we'd have to leave at that moment. Creep.

Thank goodness I wasn't last to the base of the mountain – that was Sam, by the way. I wasn't first, either, but we all had to run, and jocks like Lightning and Jo were way ahead. The teams pretty much assembled after them like subordinates. Including me.

Besides, the challenge itself was something I might actually be good at. All we had to do was climb up the...not a mountain. It was pretty much just a cliff. First team to the top got an advantage in the next part of the challenge.

We had a choice in how to climb. We could go freehand, or try our luck with a pile of junk. But if we wanted to use something in the junk pile, we'd have to brave the giant fire-breathing roach that was guarding it. Huh, never considered cockroaches to be hoarders. But it didn't matter to me. I was going to climb my own way.

It was time to start. "Let's hustle, Maggots!" Jo called to her team. "Double time!"

Dakota looked up the cliff nervously, checking her well-polished nails. B also stayed down, and Dawn couldn't even reach the lowest ledge because of her height.

Me? I started climbing. Yeah, I probably should've helped my friends, but I guessed B had a plan. Lightning and Scott were climbing, too, and so I did the same.

Lightning was doing a sort of victory chant, starting every word with "sha". He didnt stop until Scott yelled at him to shut up. Not that I blame the guy. Lightning was getting pretty annoying.

Jo, who had been mostly doing her "I'm so better at this than you" routine with Brick, looked over and called to Lightning "Get ready to lose to a girl _again_!"

By this point, I was almost level with Lightning, and above Scott. As Lightning stopped for a moment in confusion, I drew level and got higher, just as Lightning said "What girl? Who's he talking about?"

So Jo's voice and face weren't feminine enough? But just as I thought that, Lightning spoke again. "Hey, Lightning sees her! Hey, girl!"

I glanced down. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yeah, I am!" Lightning yelled. "I am NOT gonna lose this challenge cause of you!"

"We're on the same team, bozo!" I shouted back. "Come up and get level with me, and I'll race you to the top from here!"

"Oh, you're on!" Lightning exclaimed.

As it happens, we were pretty much evenly matched with our climbing and upper body strength. But neither of us actually made it to the top. Chef, who was already at the top, started throwing blocks of ice down, which first knocked Lightning down (and Scott with him), then me.

Luckily, B had been hard at work while we were climbing. He was assembling several things from the junk. This was in stark contrast to Dakota, who had been doing nothing, along with Anne Maria, who hadn't bothered climbing at all (at least, not until Jo yelled down to her that she could use better style, angering her enough to climb after all).

Meanwhile, Sam was getting attacked by the mutant beetle, acting as a distraction from B, and Dawn was standing in front of the junk pile, thinking. Then she seemed to have an idea, and spoke directly to the beetle. "Wait! Is this why you're so distraught?" She held out the beetle she'd found at breakfast, the one Lightning had almost swallowed. Yeah, it turned out it breathed fire, too. It seemed to please the other one, anyway, and it let go of Sam and rushed off with its baby.

"That was beautiful." Dawn commented.

By this time, B had assembled a loveseat and some chemicals. He sat down on the chair and beckoned everyone else. There was enough room for Dawn and I to squeeze in either side of him, while Lightning sat on the arm next to me and Sam on the other. Dakota jumped onto the back and clung on, while Scott simply held onto the arm Sam was on. B touched two wires together, and we shot into the air.

No climbing required at all, and the only person who beat us to the top of the cliff was Jo. B had won us the challenge.

I glanced up at Lightning. "Too bad we didn't get to finish our race to the top, huh?" I grinned. "I guess I could be nice to you and let you win next time. Not that you lost or anything, it's just it was pretty much a draw."

And to my surprise, Lightning actually smiled back. "I would've won anyway." he said confidently. "No one beats Lightning in any kind of race!"

"Well," I said, deciding to copy him, "Danni's certainly gonna try!"

As it turned out, we should've probably packed some winter clothes for the next challenge. Chris had aquired an ice machine and used it for the next challenge. Basically, it was a game of capture the flag, or, I guess, melt the castle. Each team got an icy structure with snowballs inside, and since we won, we got first choice – castle or shack.

"Sha-easy!" Lightning said, shivering. "C-castle!"

Scott shook his head. "Gotta be a trick!" he insisted. He said that since the castle looked good, it probably wasn't quite as good as it looked. "We'll take the shack." he said for our team, and the rest of us followed him into the worse structure.

"Great, the crappiness is thorough." Sam commented.

"I think _someone's_ going to be trying hard to win unless they want to leave." I remarked, giving Scott a hard stare. He did look a bit nervous. Thing was, he hadn't exactly been endearing himself to the team so far – I mean, I hadn't noticed him trying that hard in challenges, and he wasn't very friendly, either. There was no reason to keep him on the team. So if there was a reason to vote him off, I'd take it.

Then, we had to choose a team captain. They would choose who went on offence to capture the other team's flag, who would stay and throw the snowballs (although some of them would damage our fort if we chose unwisely), and who would defend the flag.

Actually, we didn't choose team captain (and I was betting the Maggots didn't get to choose, either).

"I'm captain." Scott said instantly. "Live with it. B, Dawn, Danni and I stay here. Lightning, Sam and Dakota, capture their maggoty flag."

I didn't appreciate Scott's attitude, but no one else protested, so I didn't say anything. Okay, well, Sam protested having to go out, but when it was time to leave, he followed Lightning reluctantly. Dakota caught my eye before running out, too. However, she ran in a slow exaggerated way, keeping her eyes on the camerapeople.

"I'll be lookout." I suggested. Scott didn't seem to care, so I stayed just inside the fort, watching everything going on outside. Things seemed fine until Sam started sliding on the ice. His weight was too much, and he became a human ice cube.

"Sam!" exclaimed Dakota, stopping. For the first time, her voice didn't sound annoyed, overly sweet, or playing to the cameras. She sounded truly concerned and worried.

"You waste time helping him!" Lightning called over his shoulder. "Lightning can capture the flag on his own!"

Meanwhile, I heard Scott and Dawn arguing. "No, I'm not gonna _listen_ to the snowball, I'm gonna _chuck_ it!" Scott was saying.

"But it's full of negative energy!" Dawn protested.

"So am I-" Scott said, right before the snowball exploded on him.

"Better listen to Dawn next time, Scott." I suggested without looking away from the outside.

Dawn's voice was sympathetic as she replied to Scott. "You weren't held enough as a child." I had to stifle giggles, wondering how he'd take that.

All he said was "Just pick one already!"

"This one!" Dawn pointed out.

It was a good choice, breaking part of the Maggots' fortress.

I could see Brick and Zoey on their way over. Then a spraycan flew out of their opening, and Anne Maria followed it. I guessed Jo or Mike (probably Jo) had thrown it out in order to get Anne Maria to do something.

All seemed to go well at first, at least in defence. Lightning and Dakota got knocked out by snowballs, though, so Sam was going to be frozen for a little while.

We even met up with the giant beetle in one snowball, and it didn't attack us when it recognized Dawn. It even obeyed Scott when he told it to attack the other team.

Also, Mike seemed to have lost his ability to perform obstacle courses flawlessly. I mean, he tried to get close to our fort quickly, but he kept slipping. When he had made it to our fort, though, he'd torn up his T-shirt in several places, and seemed to have switched character, again.

I'd told Dawn and Scott (B had been doing his own thing somewhere) that Mike was on his way, but since the Maggots' fort was melting so quickly (yeah, weird, right?), they hadn't paid too much attention. But now he was here, and acting really weird. He tore off the holey tee completely. "One side, losers!" he proclaimed in a heavy Jersey accent.

He shoved Scott to one side with almost no effort and took the flag. Weird thing, though, he pretty much blew off Zoey and wouldn't give Brick the flag when he asked for it. Weirdest thing, huh?

And then, right in the middle of this argument, several things melted. One was Sam. The other was our fort. Seriously, one moment it was around us, a second later it was gone.

And an ice disc fell to the ground. It had obviously been magnifying the effects of the sun, hit Sam and magnified even more to melt our fort.

And Scott was looking at the one member of our team who had the tools to chip out an ice disc and the one person who would have thought of that. "Nice magnifying lens, _Beverly._ That's sabotage!"

No matter what had happened, we had lost again. We'd have to take someone out, and I wasn't sure who I chose. I mean, despite the evidence, I didn't see B sabotaging our team. That just seemed so unlike him.

Scott talked to everyone on our team except B, again claiming "I tell you, B stands for bad man, and Beverly is a bad man."

"I never took him for that guy," said easily swayed Sam, "But fact-wise, it would seem he's that guy."

"I thought he seemed kind of nice." Dakota spoke up. Her quiet but firm expression was sincere, something I hadn't seen in Dakota in the first few days. "But," she added with a sigh, "We lost the challenge, and it doesn't look good for him."

"How can you trust someone who's so secretive that he doesn't even talk?" Scott said.

"That's not quite fair, Scott." I protested. "Just because B doesn't talk, it doesn't mean he won't _communicate._ Dawn and I have been talking to him for quite a while. He even told us what he wanted to do if he won – college, and building an ultimate computer."

"You know he thinks cheerleaders are airheads?" Scott shot back, so quickly that I didn't have enough time to work out whether he sounded like he was lying or not. Before I could answer, he turned to Dawn and added "He hates nature, you know." Then he finally turned to Lightning. "I've read B's diary. He calls you 'Fizzle'."

I found it very hard to believe that Scott wasn't making most of it up, but again, I couldn't understand why the disc had melted our fort. It didn't make any sense in context of B's personality, but he was the only one who would've thought of using a reflective surface to strengthen the sun's power. It just didn't make sense!

I found myself sitting on the deck with Lightning, later that evening, but before elimination. "Are you voting for B?" I asked. I didn't really mean to. The question just popped out of me before I could stop myself.

Lightning shook his head. "Nah. B messed with the challenge, but Sam messed with the Lightning!"

I frowned. "What? How did turning into a human ice cube..."

"He totally sha-dissed me!" Lightning said. "He said that him, the Thunder, was gonna make it before the Lightning just before that happened. Any wonder Lightning left rich girl to help him instead of helping?"

I frowned. "Sam was probably just joking." I said. "You know him, he doesn't take the game too seriously. Then again," I added, remembering how seriously Lightning took it, "I guess that's the other reason you want him out."

"So," Lighning asked, "Why are you so interested in Lightning's vote? You want an alliance or something?"

I shrugged. "Not looking for one. Besides, I already promised Dawn and B that I'd stick by them. Just thought I'd ask cause I was interested. And speaking of interest, you know this is the first day I've talked to you? I thought you barely knew I existed."

"Well, that was before Lightning knew you were an athlete." Lightning countered. "Your mountain-climbing...I mean, seriously, girl, no one has ever got so close to the top that fast."

"Apart from Jo." I admitted. "I mean, she dodged the ice cubes, too."

"But you were the highest up!" Lightning pointed out, and I couldn't help smiling...and blushing a little.

I tried to play it cool and shrugged it off. "Anyway, you knew I was a cheerleader. They're athletes too. I'm betting you can't do the splits or cartwheel through the air and still catch other cartwheelers."

Lightning raised his eyebrows. "I guess I'm going to have to prove you wrong about some of those sometime, girl. But only girls can do splits, anyway."

It didn't matter who I voted for that night, though. Sam and B were the last two left. B said nothing, of course, but Sam called out happily "At least I'm not going home first!"

He instantly went up in my estimation for saying that. Sam had just proved himself to be one of the least competitive people ever on Total Drama – just glad to not be the first out. He obviously expected to be sent home, but he'd still come on Total Drama, probably just to have fun. Even though I'd had to be talked into this show and I was determined to play fair, my mind kept saying _Wouldn't it be cool if you won this thing?_ I'd definitely be more disappointed than Sam if I got to that point.

But he wasn't out, anyway. It was B. He avoided taking hold of the marshmallow after what happened to Staci, and simply frowned.

Soon, we were all at the dock, waiting for our smartest teammate to get hurled (Dawn and I said proper goodbyes as we walked down there). "Any final words, Beverly?" Chris asked. "Any words at all?"  
And for the first time ever, B opened his mouth to speak. We all gasped, as...

"Time's up!" And Chris hurled him before he could say anything. The only time we ever heard B's voice was a wordless deep-pitched scream that announced his elimination.

Well, my final three plan was gone. But at least I still had Dawn, and I seemed to have made a new friend.

 **Yep, Lightning appreciates Danni's athleticism. As for who Danni ended up voting for...I think you'll have to decide that for yourself. I have two candidates in mind.**


	6. Chapter 6

**All right. A break, and then a night challenge. Thanks for reviewing, PokemonFTW, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, OmniPlanckInstant, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse, Thunderstrike16 and yeezynight14.**

I tried to spend the next free day with the Maggots as well as the Rats again. Zoey seemed a little bit down, so I asked her what was wrong. "Nothing, really." she said with a sigh. "It's just...you've noticed how Mike keeps going into character?"

"Uh-huh." I nodded.

"I feel as if he's hiding something from me." Zoey explained. "He's so sweet when he's Mike, but I feel like his playing characters is because he can't open up to me for some reason. I know I've only just met him, but..." she looked wistful. "I feel like I've known him for a long time."

I couldn't help a little smile. "The first time I saw you two on the boat, I instantly thought it was love at first sight. I mean, I don't know what's going on with Mike's characters. I've seen two of them, and I don't get why he's doing it. Maybe he's just nervous around this group and playing characters is his way of coping – you know, escaping himself for a while so his fears don't overwhelm him?"

Zoey thought about that. Then she smiled. "That helps me understand." she said. "I'll have to keep that in mind next time it happens. And when he isn't playing characters, he's really sweet to me. I mean, I've met hot guys before, but usually, they're either only interested in sports or vandalism – even when they have girlfriends, I hardly ever see the couples spending time together. Not even on dates."

I shrugged in agreement. "Same thing at home. The reason I don't have a boyfriend is because half the boys who ask me out think cheerleaders are whores and that I'll prove that to them, and the other half...well, they're OK, but I just don't have much in common with them. I'm guessing you and Mike have stuff in common?"

"Tonnes, actually." Zoey laughed. "We're both into stuff like action movies and our favourite food is waffles. And we'd both rather spend a date walking together than going out somewhere fancy."

I grinned. "Dream date stats. I'll go first: I'd like to go to a southern Indian cuisine restaurant, then walk home under the stars, just talking the whole time. Oh, and I don't have to pay." I added with a giggle. "Your turn."

Zoey's eyes went all dreamy as she imagined it. "I'd like to go to an outdoor concert with one of my favourite bands...they're pretty obscure, I'm like their only Canadian fan...and then get hot dogs or whatever from a van – you know how they're always at outdoor concerts? Then a romantic walk by a river would be ideal."

After our talk, I was hoping Zoey and I would both reach the merge. Then we'd get to share a cabin and keep talking. We never ran out of things to say.

I still wanted Dawn to reach the final three, too. I didn't have quite the same light conversations with her as I did with Zoey, but she clearly trusted me enough to tell me stuff I couldn't always get myself. The one thing Dawn told me that day was that "There's been a shift in Lightning's attitude. He's been very competitive up to this point. That's slightly dimmed. I'm not sure what happened with that, but I'm pretty sure he likes you. Like, _really_ likes you."

I blushed again, trying to sort my thoughts. "Why would Lightning be into me, though?" I wondered. "Is it because he likes my athletic skills? Or he thinks I'm pretty, or smart, or have stuff in common with him?"

"I can't tell specifics like that," Dawn told me, "But I'm sure it's a combination of those things. Your skills was what made him notice you, but after that, he probably noticed your looks and personality." She suddenly looked at me closely. I didn't stop her from doing it – even if she didn't say it out loud, I couldn't stop her from reading my aura if she wanted to.

"I can see that you're not sure what to think at the moment." she finally said. "Give it some time."

I spent a lot of time thinking about our loss again, too. I still didn't completely buy that B had sabotaged our team, but I couldn't work out what had happened if not that. In any case, Mike still got our flag before anyone got theirs, even though he didn't bring it back to his team, so we probably would have still lost. That would pinpoint the people going out as being at fault. It wasn't Sam's fault he froze, and Dakota was focused on helping him, which meant our weak link would be...

Nah, that didn't work. Lightning wasn't a weak link. He couldn't be! Or at least, that's what I told myself. I was much more willing to pick on Scott, since he'd made himself team captain. If I'd been team captain, I would've gone out too, and had Sam stay as lookout, since he wasn't the fastest runner (I wasn't, either, but I might not've broken the ice and I could've just cartwheeled my way to the Maggots' fort).

Either way, I was feeling surprisingly competitive. Enough so that the next night, when I was woken by an air horn and a yell of "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!", I wasn't even mad when I realized Chris had woken everyone up for another challenge. I just wanted to win this one!

The minute Chris declared it was 'challenge time', Brick was the one to protest. His eyes flickered around. "What? Now? When it's all...you know, dark?" I saw Jo narrow her eyes at him. What was her _problem?_ Just because Brick was obviously scared of the dark, it didn't mean that he wouldn't try to overcome it for the sake of the challenge.

As for the challenge, it was a really weird scavenger hunt thingy. We'd have to find three souvenirs in different locations – the "haunted" forest, a pet cemetery, and a cave. The first team to each location got a clue about where the souvenir might be, but there were also booby traps we'd need to watch out for. Oh, and we needed to make sure the team stuck together. If we lost anyone, we'd be penalized for each of them.

And apart from that, there was apparently a giant mutated spider on the loose. That was bad news.

I made a quick trip to the confessional before the challenge. "A mutated spider? Just my luck. I'm desperate to win this challenge, and then my least favourite creature ever turns out to not only be on the island, but oversized and probably bloodthirsty, if the last few mutants I've come across are any example." I paused, thinking. "At least Dawn's with us. If the spider does attack us, she can probably talk to it."

We got to the forest first, and got the clue. Except...well...it was in a bear trap, so Lightning ended up with claw marks on his wrist. But he passed the parchment to Dawn. "Here, creepy girl. Read the clue!"

Dawn waited until we'd walked a way away, since the Maggots were too close behind. Finally, she read " _Inside a knot is a nest, your souvenir lives with a pest. Find Polaris to travel northwest._ Polaris is the north star!"

Scott pointed to a star in the sky. "The north star is right there, so this way's northwest. There's a path!"

As we ran, Sam started reciting the clue again. "Hey, Dawn, what was the middle part?" There came no answer.

"Dawn?" I called back over my shoulder. Then I stopped. "Guys!"

"What, did we lose the weirdo?" Scott said carelessly.

Sam gulped. "We get a penalty for each lost player, right?"

"And there's some whacked-out spider creeping around, right?" Lightning added.

"And Dawn would've been the only one on the whole island who could've gotten it to see reason, _right_?" I added pointedly, glaring at Scott. To be fair, Dawn was weird, but it didn't mean Scott could call her names.

"What if the spider got her?" Dakota said, her eyes flickering around nervously.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Dawn can talk to animals and insects. If the spider _did_ get her, she can probably tell it to bring her back. That's not the worst case scenario here."

We had no problem finding the knot after that, and we couldn't dwell on Dawn's disappearance for long. When Lightning and Scott got their minds back on the game, Sam still asked "Wait? What about Dawn?"

So as I climbed up the tree to the knot so I could grab the souvenir, I said "We can't go back. Dawn can take care of herself – we'll just have to keep our eyes open so if she's nearby, we can fi-AAH!"

Yeah. Turned out the tree was mutated. The clue's pest was an eye and a bunch of tentacles, and one of them wrapped themselves around me, while another kept slapping me in the face. It didn't hurt that much, but it wasn't fun at all.

"Guys, a little help!"

Dakota just stood back, giving a squeal of fear. The rest of my team looked nervous, but they didn't back away.

Lightning sprang into action first. "Have no fear, cutie! Lightning is on it!" He ran for the tree trunk. "No calamari does that to the Lightning's teammates!" I was too worried to notice what he'd called me.

"Wait, I've seen this in _Sea Creatures 5!"_ Sam called. "To fight a squid, you have to duck, duck, jump, punch!"

"Not helping when this thing is strangling me!" I yelled out. It wasn't actually squeezing my neck, but I was definitely going to be permanently thinner if I didn't get out of the tentacle's grip soon.

"We could throw rocks." Scott suggested.

Luckily, Lightning was actually acting faster than usual. He was able to actually punch out the eye in the knot, which made the tentacle drop me. But he also fell off after Scott had already thrown a rock and accidentally hit him. I had to climb back up again, and I got a key. Okay...

Scott glanced at the key in my hand. "Good work." he said, although he didn't sound that happy.

That was when we noticed there were only four of us. "Lightning?" Sam called. "LIGHTNING!"

"Oh well, guess he's gone." Scott shrugged.

"How can you not care?" I demanded. "I wouldn't have this key right now if Lightning hadn't punched the squid-tree's eye out. Plus he saved me."

"And now the squid's gone and we've got the key." Scott replied, probably missing the point on purpose.

"But we've lost two players!" Sam protested.

"Yeah, two players who suck at this game. Come on, let's go."

"Can't we find them first?" Dakota said. "We'll get penalized for losing two."

"That's a third of our team." I added.

But the Maggots had caught up by that time, so we had to go. In fact, Sam gave a fake laugh, and said "Hey, maybe we should search for the object way over there with the rest of our teammates, cause it's not just the four of us!"

Dakota smiled at him as we headed out of the forest. "Nice thinking, Sam!"

Sam's face went pink. "Thanks, Dakota." he said, with a nervous chuckle. Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't really noticed it before, but looking at them now, I could tell Sam had a major crush on Dakota. And I wasn't sure...did Dakota like him? Maybe.

I reminded myself to keep my mind on the competition. I could wait until a free day to find out about who was most likely to hook up on this island (although to be fair, Zoey and Mike were probably going to be the first by what I knew).

We'd only run for a few minutes when I heard another scream of fear. I immediately stopped and looked behind me. Only seconds ago, I could hear footsteps behind me. And now half our teammates were gone.

"Guys, stop!" I exclaimed. "We've lost Dakota!"

Sam skidded to a stop, too, but Scott just snapped "We don't have _time_ to stop. Seriously, Danni, didn't you say let's just see if we can find them along the way?"

"We're going to get penalized if we don't find them anyway." I protested. "Besides, Dawn can take care of herself. Lightning probably can too. But I doubt Dakota can."

As it was, the Maggots beat us to the pet cemetery, but luckily, Sam managed to catch them taking flashlights from a certain grave, so that worked. And I'd also overheard Anne Maria saying "June 6, 1806" in her loud voice, so the clue was in sight.

Oh, and they'd also lost players. Before hearing that, I'd heard something much more echoey – Mike calling for Zoey. She'd obviously gone missing.

And that was when it happened. While they were grabbing the souvenir, something sticky landed on my head, pulling me up and then wrapping me up. Finally, I was thrown into a...web?

My face was still free, so I looked around. The first person I saw was...

"Dawn? What happened?"

"The spider..." Dawn said, "It's brought everyone to this web. Look!" She couldn't point, but she didn't need to. Dakota and Lightning were both there. So were Zoey and Brick, and about a minute after me, Jo landed in the web too.

"Didn't you try to talk to the spider?" I suggested to Dawn.

"It only comes here to throw someone else into the web, and then it leaves." Dawn replied. "But it's not a spider. I can sense more complicated emotions – human emotions."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you sure that's not just because it's mutated?"

"I've been able to sense the energy coming from most of the mutants on this island." Dawn said. "I am certain that the creature throwing us into the web is human. Their aura is...brighter than most, and visibly changes colour frequently, but I can't tell anything more."

We were in a cave. "Is this the cave Chris was talking about?" I wondered out loud. "The one with the last souvenirs?"

As a matter of fact, it was. Anne Maria and Mike (shirtless) arrived first. Then Sam and Scott soon followed. Sam pointed things out. "Hey! There's the last souvenir! Hey, there's our teammates! Hey, a gigantic spider!"

Yeah, the...whatever it was, maybe a not-spider...was hissing in the corner next to the web.

Oh, and the last souvenir? Yeah, there were hooks stuck into some clay in the middle of the cave, and a zipline to go down with them.

"This is so cool, my head is spinning." Sam commented, starting towards the hooks. "I think I'm overstimulated."

"Sam, not so fast!" Scott began, following him. I saw Anne Maria stick out her foot, and Scott landed on top of Sam. Then although they didn't get thrown into the web, they did get wrapped up and tied to each other.

At that moment, Anne Maria spoke to Mike. "Go get the hook, and we'll win!" He ignored her completely, and she scowled. "Fine. Go get the hook, and you'll get more of this." She kissed him with a crazy passion.

I heard Zoey gasp near me. "Keep your lips off him!"

I didn't really get what was going on. I could TELL Mike was into Zoey. Anyone with half a brain could see that. But he was that same guy he was on the ice. And that version of Mike apparently preferred Anne Maria. Poor Zoey!

The not-spider was coming closer to the web. I struggled with my bonds, calling up all my strength to bust the threads. It took me a few minutes, but I did it.

"Okay, spider, tell me who you really are!" I yelled at it. "We know you're not really a mutant!"

There was one other benefit to the spider getting close. Zoey had been so scared that Mike suddenly snapped back into his usual self, then turned into the gymnast and went up to rescue Zoey. In the process, he managed to free Brick.

"Hang on, men!" the cadet called up. "I'm coming to get you!"

"No!" Jo yelled back at him. "Get the hook, Dampy Pants!"

"I need to rescue my teammates!"

"No, you need to win! Somebody has to!"

"But my code! I can't just leave you behind!"

"Cut and run, soldier, that's an order!"

Brick seemed to be unable to refuse a direct order, and Jo knew it. He was soon grabbing the hook and taking the zipline out of the cave.

As for me? Sam was trying his hardest to get to the hooks, even while he was stuck to Scott who was telling him they were done for. I jumped down, the spider forgotten.

"If we go down together, the three of us could outweigh the penalty Brick has for going down alone." I suggested. "I'll get the hook. You two hang on."  
And it was true. Brick may have beat us to the finish line, but Chris declared us the winners. Brick had been right. He should have followed his code about not leaving his teammates behind.

"I guess you know who to vote off." I joked. "The one who told you not to follow your code." Sadly, that didn't seem to lighten the mood. Brick was still miserable.

Oh, and the spider? Dawn was right. The creepy thing crawling around the island was an ex-competitor in costume. We'll, I'd seen her dress up as a bear once, and a polar bear too. But I hadn't expected to see her here.

Yes, it was Izzy! I mean, I'd liked her enough on the show, but I didn't know if I really wanted to see her. The nut bar of the cast was amusing, but could flip easily. Oh well, I guess I should've just been happy it wasn't someone crazy mad + Hulk, like Courtney. At least Izzy was usually fun. And it _was_ kind of surreal to see her in real life.

Of course, we didn't see the Maggots at elimination. They went down just before sunrise, so I sat on the steps, waiting to see them come back (the rest of the Rats were asleep, but I wanted to see who left). Imagine my surprise when five people returned, and not only that, but one of them headed towards us.

I jumped up to greet him. "Hi, Brick. So what happened at elimination?"

"I volunteered for elimination." Brick explained. "But instead of eliminating me, Chris had me switching teams. So I'm joining you!"

I grinned at him. "Welcome to the team, then. I'm going to go get some shuteye. Good thing Chris is giving us an extra free day to make up for the night challenge!"

 **Yeah, I know, seven to four is not an equal team number. Not to worry, the Rats will never be able to keep up the wins. Even with Danni! Plus I'm planning another team switch any day now. Well, you'll see when it is, but rest assured, there will be more Maggots than Rats at the merge.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay. Backstabbers? Yeah. Is the thief a redhead or a blonde? You'll have to find out. Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14, OmniPlanckInstant, SuperKitty4789, PokemonFTW, Bloodylilcorpse and Nicky Haugh.**

We had two free days after the night challenge, and, to be honest, there wasn't much to say about either of them. I got to catch up on the sleep I'd missed, at least. I spent most of the time sitting on the steps of one of the cabins, talking to someone.

The Maggots weren't just decimated – they were divided. Before, Anne Maria and Zoey were on okay terms, but now, Zoey wouldn't even speak to her because of the Mike thing. That was not good for me, because I liked both of them and didn't want either of them to hate me. On the first day, I did have a little bit of makeover time. Anne Maria was really into makeovers, so I asked her to try some things out on me, and she said she would, as long as I didn't try to talk her into letting me reciprocate ("My look is already perfect"). To be honest, I had to agree with Jo about her lack of style after I saw myself in the mirror.

I tried to be tactful, though. "It's a nice look, but I don't think it's me." I said kindly. "I mean, it's something that looks great on you, but look at us. You're tan and dark and curvy, while I'm tall and fair and slim." (I wasn't really that tall, but you know, tall enough to be a base rather than a flyer).

Anne Maria surveyed me critically. Finally, she gave a sigh. "Yeah, I don't think you're the right one for that look. Your style is way too far from mine to work. I guess your look works for you, but I'm pretty sure I could find some other tips for you. See ya later, 'kay?"

I let Zoey pour out her Mike-centered troubles to me on the second day, and told her again that Mike was just acting weird because he had no idea what to do, and was messing up, letting things happen like Anne Maria throwing herself at him because he didn't know how to respond.

Above all, I was feeling more pumped for challenges that I'd ever expected. I was determined to win every one, and get to the merge and continue winning there. Well, I guessed we could afford to lose once, since I was definitely not the first on the chopping block. But even so, I didn't want to take that chance at all.

The one time I wasn't hanging out with any of the girls, I was cloud gazing on the dock. Suddenly, I felt footsteps thundering down the dock, and the sun was blocked out as the footsteps stopped and a form fell over me.

"Whatcha doing?"

I sat up, seeing my most competitive teammate. "Nothing. What about you? There's nowhere to run once you get to the end, unless you're planning to tread water in your clothes."

Yeah, it was Lightning. He shrugged. "I have my workout routine. Just felt like timing myself to the end of the dock."

Something told me he wasn't telling me the exact truth. I couldn't help wondering if this was about me, not his exercise routine.

Still, I smiled, getting to my feet. "How about this? I race you to the end of the dock – _but,_ in cartwheels. Bet I can do it faster than you!"

Lightning's eyes lit up. "You're on, girl! Ain't no one faster than Lightning!"

I was a quick cartwheeler. Of course I was. But although I knew Lightning was an athelete, I didn't expect him to be great at the acrobatics cheerleaders all needed to be able to do. Well, I was proved wrong. He wasn't any faster than me, but we ended up tying. More than once, actually. Lightning kept asking for a rematch, every time we tied. He gave up after fifteen races, and just said "Wow. Not bad."

That was the highest praise Lightning had given anyone in our team. At worst, he called us a "bunch of losers". At best, he didn't insult our team, but attributed most of the win to himself. This was actually telling me I'd done okay against him! That was pretty impressive in itself.

I was woken up the next morning by a sound through the walls. It sounded like a fanfare. I heard yells of "My ears!" and "I'm up, Coach!" from the guys' side of the cabins.

Dakota groaned and put a pillow over her ears. "What time is it?"

Then I heard Brick's voice, loud and clear. "Rise and shine, soldiers!"

I sighed, cleared my throat, and yelled through the thin wall, "Brick, if you can hear me, don't bother checking whether we are up – Dakota just put a pillow over her head, and it looks like Dawn's already up." Her pyjamas were lying on her empty bunk.

Look, I liked Brick, but he didn't need to wake everyone up at the same time as him. It didn't exactly show accomodating behaviour, especially when he'd only just joined the team.

Since I was already up, I went to the showers and got ready for the day early, which is how I spotted Brick talking to Dawn. Apparently he'd left the cabin the minute I'd started yelling, so he hadn't even heard me!

I went to the confessional once I was ready. "Brick's a nice guy, but did he really need to wake everyone up with a fanfare alarm? He needs to be careful. If our team loses, he's already making himself a target. Oh well, let's see how he does in challenges. If he's any good, we can get rid of Dakota instead. She's still the biggest target for the moment."

At breakfast, we found out Lightning had had something stolen. He said it was...protein powder? Huh, weird – if I wanted protein, I could snack on a salami stick – it wasn't actually that many calories. Protein powder I imagined to taste like a Panadol pill – sour and bitter. A trial for tastebuds.

Chris got us out of the mess hall by releasing a giant raccoon, and then told us to put on our swimsuits and head to the dock. There, we were met with two diving suits and oxygen pumps with our team symbols on them.

"All right!" Chris grinned. "Here to help us get today's competition under way, say hello to one of our classic competitors – Bridgette!"

Yes, my veteran counterpart, according to Ronan. As Chris said her name, she and an intern paddled up in a canoe. Momentarily I wondered if it was the same one she and Courtney took to Boney Island in the first season.

Bridgette didn't look any different to how she had in the show. Still, she wasn't looking very happy, and I couldn't blame her. She had a terrible time last season, even when she was taken out of the game, so she was probably none too happy to be back on here.

"Let's get this over with." my fellow blonde said, scowling. "Remember, my contract said demonstration only."

She didn't even need to demonstrate, though. Chris seemed to have brought her back purely for the sake of bringing someone back.

So, the first part of the challenge was to grab the waterskis that were underwater – one camper from each team would grab them, while the rest of the team pumped the oxygen. First skis to surface chose the winner and got the team an advantage.

I heard Jo insisting on diving to the rest of her team, while Brick said to us "I suggest we draw straws to decide who dives."

"Forget the straws, doofus!" Scott said impatiently, dropping the diving helmet on our new teammate. "Time to prove your loyalty to your new platoon."

I scowled. "Scott, stop acting like you're the leader of this team. Otherwise we'll send _you_ home next. Brick, if you can hear me, don't forget you're new to the team. You're trying to play leader, too, and you can't do that when you've only just joined us."

The outcome was that Brick dived and while Lightning pumped, I was busy watching Zoey and Mike talking as Mike pumped. He was telling her that he didn't know what he was doing when he kissed Anne Maria last challenge, because he was so deep into character, and if Zoey didn't like it, he'd try to give them up, or at least tone it down.

That's when Anne Maria noticed something I hadn't. She shoved Zoey hard. "Hey, get off the air tube, bozo!"

"Don't push!" Zoey snapped, shoving back. She looked down at her hand, which had some of the tan come off on her. "Sheesh, are you wearing orange paint?"

Since my team had everything under control, I stepped in. "Girls, stop! Zoey, she was only pushing you because you were standing on the air tube. Jo probably couldn't breathe. Don't be so harsh on her! Anne Maria, listen, your tan is gorgeous. It _is_ sort of orange, but it's a great colour on you, okay?"

The two girls looked at each other, their eyes both hard. Finally, they seemed to relax. As for me, I grinned. "Okay, listen, you two. I may want you to fight in order to strengthen my team, but I like you both and I don't like you fighting, and I'm sure Mike doesn't want to listen to it either. Right?" I looked to the only male Maggot, who gave a nod and a nervous smile. "So Anne Maria, next time, just tell Zoey if she's doing something wrong instead of pushing her, and Zoey, I know what you're thinking, but there's no need to say something like that."

Fight averted.

Unfortunately, things weren't so hot on my team. There were a couple of other things that had gone missing from both teams, and while he was underwater and couldn't defend himself, Scott, who'd lost a shark tooth, started insisting it had to be Brick. "That dude's been on both teams! He knows everybody's best stuff, and he's taking it to mess with us!"

Even Anne Maria defended Brick, but then again, she seemed pretty happy to accuse him when she realized her hairbrush was missing.

It didn't matter whether Brick had stolen whatever or not, anyway. He still won the challenge for us, meaning the second part of the challenge would be easier for us. The Maggots got a leaky dinghy, while we got a motorboat.

Yeah, all would be explained once Chris felt like it.

Well, the second part of the challenge was only suitable for five campers at the most, so we had two members as a surplus and the Maggots were one player short, but considering three of them were waterskiiers, that was okay. Our idea was that we had to dodge watermines, but ring bells on three of them. Whoever rang the most won. Our way of ringing them was to shoot at them with mutant gulls (they were part rattlesnake), of which we only had three (obviously, missing was not an option). We had to choose one shooter, one person to drive the boat and three waterskiiers (or two in the Maggots' case). As for our other teammates, they'd end up in the boat.

I gathered from the other team that Mike and Anne Maria would be skiing, while Jo would shoot and Zoey would drive.

I spoke to my team. "Since Brick got the skis, I think he should be one of the ones in the boat. It's only fair. I don't mind being one of the skiiers. What else is everyone doing?"

Lightning called driving and Scott called shooting, since he claimed he and his "pappy" had been shooting kitchen rats together since he was little. Dakota volunteered to stay in the boat, leaving Sam and Dawn to ski with me. Probably a good thing.

Only a minute into the game, Lightning got hit with a gull, and fell unconscious.

"Lightning!" I cried. "Will he be okay?"

"He's just stunned by the venom in the rattlesnake part of the gull." Dawn whispered. "He'll be fine in about an hour."

I calmed down after that, especially as Scott fired the first shot and we hit the first bell perfectly, while the Maggots missed. Everyone started cheering and congratulating Scott, who strangely didn't seem that happy about it.

Worse, since Lightning wasn't able to drive, our boat was stopped, and the Maggots got the second bell, thanks to Mike's Svetlana gymnast character. Even worse, we'd lost our skis when the boat had stopped.

Luckily, Dawn kept a cool head. "Everyone, calm down." she said in a surprisingly authoriative tone. "I have a plan. Sam, you drive."

That was fine with him.

"Danni, we'll have to ski with Lightning." Dawn told me.

I frowned. "He won't get hurt with this, right? I mean, I know we need him to ski with, but..."

"He'll float, and that's enough." Dawn said, before turning to our shooter. "Scott, don't you dare fire any more of those defenseless gulls."

"Promise." Scott said, before firing another one. "Starting now!" Dawn scowled at him.

Still, the plan seemed to work. Mostly. It was going fine until we somehow lost our last gull, and according to Scott, Jo had shot at Sam, leaving him unconscious. The Maggots narrowly won.

Okay, so we all crashed. Both teams. But the Maggots got the last bell, so they still won.

"Jo had a lucky shot, I guess." Scott sighed.

"Jo?" Dawn said, looking at Scott suspiciously. "Or the guy who shot kitchen rats with his Pappy?"

I instantly got what Dawn was saying. But why did she think Scott was the one who shot Sam? Why would he sabotage his own team?

Later on that afternoon, I saw Dawn coming out of the confessional. It was weird. I'd never seen her go to the confessional before. And I had definitely never seen her so angry. She literally _kicked_ the door open. Still, the one thing I saw that she didn't, was Scott, hanging around outside the outhouse.

"Hey, Dawn!" I called, running to catch up with her. She stopped. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Are you that mad about losing the challenge?"

"That's not what matters." Dawn said harshly. "What matters is _how_ we lost."

I frowned. "I know from what you said before that you think Scott shot Sam." I said slowly. "But how did you figure that?"

"Jo's gun was jammed." Dawn explained. "I just got finished explaining that in the confessional. Scott was the only one in control of a working gun, so he must have shot Sam. I swore to expose him for the traitor he is." She paused. "And I will admit I have some suspicions as to what caused B's elimination."

I thought about that. "If Scott is trying to make us lose, then him wanting B gone makes total sense." I realized out loud. "B was useful in every challenge. And the Maggots' fort was melting rather quickly before ours did..." I suddenly realized what had happened. "The ice disc reflecting off the sun! It was supposed to melt the Maggots' fort! It got knocked off course and hit Sam's ice cube, then reflected off it to our fort!"

"And Scott might have had something to do with it." Dawn finished. "I don't know for certain, but I can see in his aura that he doesn't like it when we win."

Well, today, we sure hadn't won. And Scott had another trick up his sleeve. See, Dawn had been collecting shells on the beach and other random things for a while. And _somehow,_ Scott got hold of her bag, made like he was going to give it to her in front of our whole team, dropped it, and out spilled everything that had been missing.

"Jo's whistle! Scott's shark tooth!" Sam exclaimed.

"And Anne Maria's hairbrush!" I added.

"My protein!" cried Lightning. "I've missed you!"

Brick looked at our smallest team member. "Dawn, you're a thief?" Dawn looked lost for words, even to defend herself. But I knew Dawn, and I knew what was wrong with this picture.

I didn't miss a beat. "That's completely wrong!" I declared. "How do you think Scott got ahold of her bag in the first place? He's the one stealing everything, so he slipped everything, plus his shark tooth, into Dawn's bag. Not only that, but he kept saying it was you, Brick. He's only making it look like Dawn because she saw what really happened at the challenge today."

I rounded on Scott. "Dawn told me that you shot Sam! And that you've been trying to sabotage us for a while. I _thought_ B sabotaging us didn't sound right, and you're never very happy when our team gets something right, are you?"

There was a pause. Then Lightning stood up. "Yeah! Danni's right. You never _are_ happy when we win! And you're always the first to bail out of challenges and say we'll never win now."

Sam looked around, and then said "Come to think of it, didn't you try to stop me from getting the hook last challenge?"

"And I saw you go into the Maggots' cabin just before breakfast!" Dakota added. We all stared at her, wondering why she'd never mentioned it before. "What? I notice stuff. I just assumed he was leaving a love letter for one of them or something."

I couldn't help laughing. "So what he was really doing was stealing Anne Maria's hairbrush and Jo's whistle, huh?"

"I – I can explain!" Scott stammered, starting to look worried. Despite myself, I felt sorry for him.

I stepped forward. I was starting to feel like the leader of the team. "Don't bother explaining, Scott. Just listen. If you promise not to sabotage us again, we'll give you another chance. If you do again, you're gone. No warning. Everyone else, we vote differently. Scott?" I held out my hand. "If you want to stay on our team, swear you'll never sabotage us again."

Scott looked at me warily. Then he took my hand and shook it. "I swear I won't sabotage you." he parroted my phrase. Then I dropped his sweaty hand straightaway and went to vote.

I voted for Dakota. She still wasn't really that useful, and Dawn had said if Dakota stayed long enough, it would end badly for her. It was time I made sure that prediction didn't come true. I think I convinced Dawn to do the same. She still wanted to vote for Scott, but she was aware everyone else had agreed with me not to, plus she said some of them were still not sure if what I was saying was true, so she voted with me in the hopes to stay on and save Dakota.

But no one else had apparently listened. Once Scott was ousted as the real thief, the others all voted for him. As it turned out, he had the immunity idol – yeah, he had to play it this early in the game. So Scott was still in, and the Toxic Marshmallow of Loserdom went to...

"Dakota."  
"NO!" the fashionista exclaimed. "This has to be a mistake! I didn't get my spin-off series yet!"

I stopped her before she could say any more. "Dakota, you'll get your spin-off if you get in touch with an agent." I told her gently. "Haven't you enjoyed anything on the island apart from the cameras?"

Dakota stopped pouting for a moment. Her eyes met Sam's for one second, and she smiled. "I guess so." she said. Her green eyes hardened again. "But I'll be back."

So when Dakota took the Hurl of Shame that night, I had no doubt that she had a plan to return. Who knew when it would be? Still, at least she wasn't going to be on our team any more.

 **Yeah. So now Scott has it in for Danni. However, since she has no visible weaknesses and will be keeping an eye on him, he'll have to hold off on getting rid of her. Can you see a good reason for him to start messing with Zoey instead?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Modelling, modelling, modelling. Wait. Scratch the last one. And our favourite bimbo will be making a special appearance! Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, OmniPlanckInstant, Pokemon FTW, Jonny Pickles, yeezynight14, SuperKitty4789 and Bloodylilcorpse.**

The next free day wasn't great. Scott was still furious with most of our team, but mostly me since I exposed him, Sam was missing Dakota (yeah, I'm sure there was something going on between them, even though neither of them were saying), Dawn was mad at Scott, and Brick didn't seem to know what to think. Meanwhile, it sounded as if Mike had done another switch to Anne Maria on Zoey, and she was angry with both of them. It seemed as if everyone on the show was either fed up or mad at someone.

Well, except Lightning. I slept late that day, and I was woken up by a pounding on the cabin door. "UP AND AT EM! GET YOUR CUTE FACE OUT HERE! WE GOT WORK TO DO!"

As it turned out, the reason Lightning wanted me to get up was because he thought I should learn to run faster, and in general, improve my lower body strength. Well, and he also wanted me to do some cheers for him, but after one little routine, I just made a face at him when he wanted me to do more and he let it go.

After a whole morning of working out, I was totally worn out. "Why are you making me do this?" I complained. "Today is supposed to be a break from challenges, and I want to be on top form tomorrow, so we can win!"

"Yeah, but you have to build up your stamina so we win!" Lightning countered. "You're the only one on our team who could make it as far as second place, so Lightning thought it would be cool to try and get both of us to the finale!"

I frowned. "If I'm such a strong player, why are you trying to make me stronger to get to the finale? Aren't you worried you'll make me so strong I'll beat you?"

"Sha-nope! No one ever beats Lightning at anything!" the jock said confidently. "So you won't either."

I kept watching his expressions as I asked another question. "But why do you care who gets to the finale? I mean, what's the difference between me getting to the finale, and say, Zoey? She told me she does gymnastics at home, so she'd be probably evenly matched with me."

A look of nervousness came over Lightning's face, and he suddenly looked up at the sky and said "Is that the time? Sorry, girl, training's over for today. Catch you sha-later!" And he ran off.

I was starting to get a feeling Dawn was right. Lightning was into me, and as a matter of fact, I wasn't too opposed to a relationship. I mean, Lightning was good-looking, and funny. Plus he wanted me, not some anonymous cheerleader. Considerate? Not really. Sweet? Maybe not. Well, at least, he seemed quite sweet when it was just him and me, and maybe, if I got to know him better, I could decide.

As it was, I was not going to get into a relationship while I was on the island. That ended badly for so many people. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think Lightning was going to turn out to be another Alejandro, but that didn't mean getting involved with him was going to turn out well while we were competing. Courtney was a prime example of relationships blocking her from the win. Yeah, I wasn't Courtney, but I was still wary. Besides, we'd only been on the island for ten days. Not even two weeks yet! I'd have to wait until I got to know Lightning better to decide what to do.

The next challenge was actually rather different from the last ones. The main reason? Well, because we had to get creative.

The day started normally enough. Most of us girls were getting ready for the days in the communal bathroom. Well, Dawn wasn't too bothered and once she'd showered, she only needed to get her long fair hair neat and she was done. So by this time, it was just me and the Maggot girls.

"Nice hair." Anne Maria teased Zoey as the redhead adjusted her flower hairclip. "Looks like Princess Leia lost a scissor fight."

Zoey narrowed her eyes. "Actually, it's more like Queen Amygdala."

"More like Queen Amyg _dork_ a." Anne Maria retorted, immediately wielding her ultimate weapon – hairspray. "Now _that_ is how you do hair."

"That works for you." I said reasonably. "But you've got dark hair, and it's great. Zoey's bunches work well for her. It may not be the latest fashion, but it's a really cute look." I grinned at Zoey, tossing my own long bob. "And I know that my hair works best as long as I brush it silky, then let it alone. Blondes with loose hair have more fun. Right, Jo?"

Jo's hair was almost brown, but I thought it was light enough to call it blonde. But when I asked, she just shrugged. "I'll pass on the frilly girly hair care, thank you."

"Too bad." I couldn't resist teasing. "Maybe Brick would make a move if you tried to look good."

Jo stared at me. For a moment, she looked shocked. Then she seemed to recover. "What are you talking about?"

I shrugged. "Oh, nothing. Just that you two seemed like a good match. And you act like someone who's dealing with her first crush."

Jo glared at me. "What do you know, Cheer Chick? Get lost and don't spread your rumours about me!"

But I was on a roll now. "Oops, looks like I was wrong." I teased. "You must make fun of everyone, not just your crushes. Unless you happen to be into _me,_ too..."

By this point, Zoey was starting to look worried. Anne Maria, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing. Jo looked like she was ready to punch me in the face, but Zoey suddenly jumped in. "Time out! Danni, stop teasing Jo – that's not fair. You wouldn't like it if we teased you about Lightning."

I stared at her. "How the HELL did you know anything about that? I haven't even decided if I like him that way. And Dawn's the only one who knew he was into me."

Luckily for Zoey, the loudspeakers interrupted us. "It's challenge time! Campers, meet me on the other side of the island!"

I avoided taking the chance to apologize to Jo. But as we went out, Anne Maria whispered to me "Great show there – let me know next time you're going to do that so I can watch." I mock glared at her, and she laughed. "Seriously, I like your attitude!"

Zoey walked with me for a minute before catching up with her team. "You know, you don't have to hide your thing with Lightning." she told me quietly. "He's not my type, but I can tell you like him, even if you don't know it yet."

I smiled. "Let's make a deal." I proposed. "I'll give Lightning a chance when you hook up with Mike, cause I know you want to."

Zoey's smile dropped. "I don't know." she muttered. "I was fine with his old man character and the Svetlana one, but that new one, Vito? For some reason, he's into Anne Maria. Mike has to pick a side and stick to it before anything happens. He can't be into both of us."

"Oh." I frowned, too.

But it was challenge time. I couldn't spend all my time talking to Zoey, and once we reached the outdoor amphitheatre, I sat down between Dawn and Sam. The latter was looking depressed – probably because of two reasons. Chris had finally confiscated all his game consoles, and he was probably still missing Dakota.

As it turned out, the challenge was all about fashion. We had to dress up a model.

"Fashion." Jo scoffed. "Waste of time."

"Says the girl in prison sweats." Anne Maria retorted.

"Hey, nobody needs to be reminded that I'm a girl!"

"Sorry, who's a girl?" Lightning said from behind me.

I turned and said "Well, me and Dawn for two. And Zoey, and Anne Maria – but the one you're thinking of is Jo."

Lightning took one look at the tomboy and said out loud "No way is he a girl! Now _you_ are what a girl should look like."

I didn't argue. We didn't have the time. We only had ten minutes to dress and make up a model. "Which you will send down the runway," Chris said, "To be judged by myself, Chef, and today's Total Drama classic competitor...Lindsay!"

The competitor suddenly popped up, practically out of nowhere. "Yay! Don't you just _love_ my new special fashion judg-y shoes?"

"Oh sweet Oz." I muttered. "Please don't tell me he's going to flirt with her this episode." I knew for a fact that Chris had an extremely squicky crush on Lindsay, who was sixteen when she first competed last summer (the way he looked at her when she dressed up like Wonder Woman was proof enough). But I had to admit, for a fashion judge, she was the obvious choice.

Not that we were dressing a human model. We had to catch one of the mutants. And guess what our team chose? A Sasquatch. Yeah, seriously.

"How are we gonna get it out of there and dress it in time?" Sam wondered.

"Fire power!" Brick volunteered. "The only way to take down a formidable enemy! Come on!"

Brick's idea was fair enough. He had this idea to use a clothes bomb. We just had to throw it at the yeti and it would dress it straight off. We just had to get it to the runway – besides, we were just planning to get Dawn to ask it nicely to join us on the runway, and it could go after that.

The only problem was that Brick's sense of fashion was...well, lame.

"Who should we get to choose the clothes?"

It was Lightning who spoke up. "I know!" he said. "Danni! Look at her! She dresses cute, so she could do it!"

I started panicking. Just because I could dress well didn't mean I could dress others well. But the other guys were looking at me now, and agreeing.

"Yeah, good idea, Lightning!" Sam said.

"Yeah." Scott said slowly, eyeing me in such a way that I knew what he was thinking. He was hoping for an excuse to vote me off.

Well, no way was I going to let that happen! I chose the first outfit that I thought would suit the yeti – a dark blue tracksuit with a backwards matching cap and white running shoes. Once we'd dressed the yeti, we had two minutes left, so we sent Dawn in to gently coax the creature to the runway, which she did well, reassuring it that no one meant any harm and once it had modeled for us, it was free. We just wanted a favour from it first.

The Maggots showed off their model first. They'd dressed a giant maggot in a blonde bouffant and a polkadot go-go dress. I could instantly tell that Zoey had had a hand in it – and not just because Anne Maria described the outfit in a particularly bored tone.

The maggot got a fairly good score. Lindsay gave it an 8.1, and Chris an 8.5. Chef – I wasn't sure, it was either an 8.0 or a 0.8. Lindsay had originally put hers upside down, but once she realized and turned it around, Chef did the same with his.

Ours was a lot worse. Not only did Chris critique our choice, saying it was far too small and made the yeti bulge out, not only did Lindsay gasp and exclaim "That thing is _huge!",_ not only did the yeti look extremely upset, leading Dawn to approach, but it then stole Chris' jet pack, grabbed Lindsay in one hand and Dawn in the other, and zoomed off to Boney Island.

Yeah, the one from the first season where Beth took the tiki doll from.

By the time we were on the dock, ready to grab canoes and go save our teammate and the other competitor, Chris was getting trouble from the lawyers. "What do you mean, I'm liable if the yeti eats Lindsay instead of Dawn? It's not _my_ fault she's delicious!"

Yeah, that was in the contracts. Lindsay's one said Chris couldn't let her die, but our new ones stated that he wasn't responsible for our deaths. So if Dawn didn't survive (although obviously she did, there was no way an animal would hurt her), legally, Chris was free. But if Lindsay was the one who got it, the law would not be happy. It almost made me hope that the yeti would attack Lindsay.

Almost. I mean, no one would really wish that on someone as sweet and innocent as Lindsay.

Basically, the idea was simple. The team that saved the blondes would get immunity.

"Great choice for our team's fashion consultant." Scott muttered bitterly as we rowed the canoe. "At least we know who to vote off next."

"Yeah, the guy who's been cheating." I countered. "Would you rather I let our team down by refusing to do it after all the pressure was on me? Oh, right, you would, then we would be sure to lose. I tried to save your butt last challenge by saying you had another chance – and yeah, I failed, but at least I tried to tell our team not to vote for you – and I didn't vote for you, either. Just be grateful I didn't try to take you down then."

Lightning stuck up for me. "Yeah! Danni's right! If it wasn't for that sha-idol, you would've been outta here! So just shut up and keep rowing!"

Sam was lying in the back, not really doing anything. I turned around. "Sam, can you at least row?"

"Sorry." our teammate replied weakly. "I haven't played a video game in so long, my brain's not working – I'd probably drop the..." his voice trailed off as he raised his head, staring at the ducks for some reason. "Huh? Uh...did you guys see that just now?"

"See what?" Scott said impatiently. We kept rowing into Boney Island's trademark mist.

Scott ran further ahead than us. The Maggots had already ditched their canoe and run out of sight from the shore, so we just had to follow their footprints, and for whatever reason, Scott was out of the canoe and running out of sight while the rest of us pulled it up the sandy bank so we wouldn't lose it.

We found the blondes sitting either side of the yeti at the top of a structure that appeared to be part of a building scheme.

We could hear the girls talking to the sad yeti from below. "No one meant any harm from what they said." Dawn told her. "It was the clothes, not you."

"It's okay, yeti." Lindsay added. "The world just can't handle a beauty like yours. You're a snowflake, just, like, a _lot_ bigger. I mean, like, a _lot_."

As it turned out, the structure was to do with Chris. He had sent a couple of builders to turn Boney Island into his personal resort.

Now we had to save the girls, although to be honest, they didn't look as if they needed saving.

"Don't hurt him!" Dawn called down. "We're perfectly fine!"

"Yeah, he just has big hairy body issues!" Lindsay called.

The rescue mission was a joke. Sam actually could have won the challenge for us, because once the planks of wood tipped, he was up it like a ramp, dodging or smashing the barrels the yeti threw down. He suddenly lay there towards the end.

"Come on, Sam!" Brick called. "You're almost there!"

"Go get him, you crazy couch potato!" Lightning cheered.

I had noticed Sam's behaviour. He had started thinking he was in a video game. And I knew how to motivate him.

"Sam, you've got one life left, and one level to beat!" I yelled. "Power up, man!"

The problem was, Sam just wasn't strong against a yeti. The creature just tossed him back to the ground. Meanwhile, Jo, with the worst makeup job ever, was climbing up. She clearly didn't know what to do, but her idea was obviously to lure the yeti away.

The yeti just started laughing. Lindsay giggled too. "See, that's another what _not_ to do."

Jo scowled. "Hey, what's so funny, you big ape?" She punched him out, winning the challenge.

"Oh!" Dawn cried, running down to see if he was all right.

"Um, Jo?" I called up. "Who did your makeup? Because you really need to check a mirror. And why are you wearing any, anyway? You were prettier without that job."

Lindsay was powdering herself, so Jo snatched her compact, and stared at herself. A second later, she'd picked up a barrel herself. "Hey, Chester, here's a makeover for you!"

Chester, as I remembered, was one of Mike's characters. As she started throwing stuff at him, the poor guy kept dodging, calling out "What did I do?" Looked like "Chester" had gotten a little too crude with doing Jo's makeup, and Mike hadn't realized his mistake.

But at least that team got immunity. And worse, Chris wanted both teams at elimination for a reason. "Team Rat, as you know, you had two players more than the Maggots when we started." he said. "And now, it's time to move one of your teammates over to the Maggots' side to make it fair. So instead of just voting one person off, you'll be losing two – and I get to choose the first person. Right now. So go join your new team..."

I held my breath, wondering who we would lose. I was hoping Scott, but what if it was me?

"...Dawn."

I gave a sigh. It could have been worse, but then again, I wasn't sure how. It just could have been so much better, too. It would've been a lot easier on us if Chris had just moved Brick back, or something.

Then we had to vote. I'd already known Scott would try to turf me, so I'd conferred with Lightning and Brick and we'd agreed on the one person who really needed to go. And I mean, it would help him.

But before Chris could give out the Toxic Marshmallow of Loserdom, a familiar cry rang out and something pink landed on one of us.

Chris scowled. "I _hate_ it when losers get all clingy."

"Hey, Sam." the owner of the hang-glider said, taking her helmet off.

For the first time since the fashion show, Sam's eyes focused. "Oh, hi, Dakota!" he said.

"Dakota, you're no longer competing!" Chris called to her. "Remember?"

"Um, excuse me, can we deal with whether you're getting rid of Dakota or not after this elimination?" I called. "The audience wants to hear that first."

Yeah, that was a low blow. I just wanted to have that given out, because I had a feeling that once Dakota heard who was going, she wouldn't be so keen to stay around.

Yeah, I was right. Sam was out, and when Chris told Dakota she had to go, she shrugged and said "Whatever. I would get Daddy to pay you off, but it's so not worth it."

Sam himself seemed cool with being voted off. "Looks like I'm all out of continues." he said neutrally. "Sorry I couldn't have been of more help to you guys."

"Semper fi." Brick replied.

"Sit down, fool!" Lightning snapped at him.

I grinned at Sam. "Sorry, man. But at least you're leaving with your girl."

Dakota blushed, but smiled. She didn't even argue with me.

While Chef dragged them off, Chris sprung another surprise on us. "I'll need a strong volunteer from each team."

"Right here!" Jo jumped up instantly.

"Ditto!" Scott called out, also standing up.

"Pack your bags." Chris told them.

Zoey spoke up. "You're hurling them too?" She sounded about as shocked as I felt.

"Nah, I don't give people time to pack before they get hurled." Chris replied. "These two are switching teams!"

We all gasped. Dawn and I shot each other sympathetic looks as our new teammates sat down with us. I mean, I was glad to be rid of Scott, but I was pretty sure he'd be ready to take Dawn out before you could say "evil aura". And after what I'd said to Jo that morning, she'd probably want to take me out.

Needless to say, that night was not a fun one.

 **So now Danni is basically on Team Brawn. Think about it – Brick's the only one that has a strict moral code, while Jo and Lightning are both just physically powerful. Good thing she's got her own physical strengths – and good thing Lightning likes her.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Time to mine! Okay, that doesn't even rhyme. Except that part does. Whatever.**

 **Oh, a little point to make here. Danni mentions that Heather won World Tour. No comments about how Alejandro is supposedly the official winner. It's obvious that Heather was meant to be the winner, considering in both endings, she throws Alejandro down the volcano and finishes the final challenge, so I'm counting her as the canonical winner.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, yeezynight14, Liz The Sweet Writer, PokemonFTW, OmniPlanckInstant, Nicky Haugh, Bloodylilcorpse, RebelToasters12, and SuperKitty4789.**

Even the free day between challenges wasn't fun. I spent most of it chilling with the female Maggots, since they now consisted of three girls I liked, not two. But with Anne Maria and Zoey still in a mood with each other, and Dawn clearly not sure how to react, the atmosphere was pretty cold.

Lightning didn't drag me off to train on the free day. However, he did wake me the next morning by pounding on the door. "WARM UP BEFORE THE CHALLENGE! UP IN FIVE!"

Jo had left the cabin by this time, so I managed to dress and shower without interruption, and was outside the cabins and ready within ten minutes. Meanwhile, Lightning had already started getting Brick working out. He was using a log as weights. He was doing all right, I thought, but eventually, Lightning took the log off him and declared "Let Lightning show you how it's done!" He began lifting the log with one hand. "Think the new guy can do this?"

Brick looked confused. "Who, Jo?"

"I don't get it." I whispered to him. "How can he not tell that Jo's as much a girl as me?"

It didn't seem to matter, anyway. Lightning just barrelled on about how unstoppable we'd be. Then he seemed to finally notice I was there, and said "So, you OK with a guy sharing your cabin?" He looked truly concerned, almost protective, like I was a little sister or something. Well, okay, he didn't treat me like a little sister, but it was still sweet protectiveness.

I shrugged and played along. Well, he hadn't believed me the first time I said Jo was a girl, so I wasn't going to bother trying to correct him. "Don't worry, Jo's all right. I think I'd know if I was in any danger or anything. I'm not planning to spend much time in the cabin when I'm not asleep, anyway."

Lightning's expression still didn't change. "Well, if he gives you any trouble, just come let me know. Lightning'll make sure you won't have to keep sharing with him if you don't want to!"

I smiled. I liked seeing this side of Lightning. Maybe he was boyfriend material after all.

While our team went to the mess hall after Jo finally put in an appearance, Brick started laying down all the rules about how she had to conduct herself. Stuff like never leaving anyone behind, obeying him, and not calling him any more names based on his embarassing secret.

Jo managed to break the third rule in two seconds. She quickly added a "Sorry. Force of habit", but I think she just enjoyed picking on him.

As it was, we couldn't get breakfast. The mess hall was deserted, and even when we tried the kitchen, nothing seemed to be there. Nothing really happened until a suspiciously familiar voice announced "We should check in the walk-in freezer!"

"Hey, yeah!" Lightning ran into the freezer before anyone comprehended who the voice belonged to. Since there actually was frozen meat in there, we all followed him, only to find ourselves trapped in a van. A van that was leaving for another part of the island. It felt like a prison van, especially when a little strip was pulled aside to show our driver.

Yeah, it was Chef. "Challenge time, suckers!" he chuckled.

"We kind of gathered that." I snapped. "Why don't we get anything to eat first?"

"And where are you taking us?" Zoey added.

"Oh, you'll see." Chef kept on laughing.

We were dumped in front of a mine shaft, which had a video feed of Chris set up on a large screen nearby.

"Good." he said. "You're here, finally. Today's challenge is to find a golden Chris statue in your team colour hidden somewhere in this old abandoned mine. First team back wins!"

"Sha-done and done!" Lightning declared. "Go Team Dude...and Danni!"

Jo glared at Lightning. "Are you sha- _blind_? I'm not a-" Jo didn't finish her sentence when a pack was thrown at her. We all had to take one, but we weren't allowed to look at what was in it.

Finally, we got chemical badges. Chris explained that he'd dumped most of the toxic waste in the mine.

We all gasped, and Anne Maria asked the question we were all thinking. "Are you _demented?_ "

"No, which is why I'm in a studio right now." Chris explained.

"Meaning yes, but not enough to risk your own life." I said. Maybe a week ago, I wouldn't have dared backtalk the man who my life was in the hands of. But I'd been around Chris for almost two weeks, and I knew he wouldn't be bothered by a comment like that.

And he wasn't. "Relax, it's perfectly safe. For thirty minutes." He explained that when fifteen minutes were up, our green badges would turn orange, and when we only had five minutes left, it would go red. Afterwards would be a skull and crossbones, meaning we were probably dead, but he insisted that it wouldn't happen, since he'd sent an intern down for ten minutes longer, and she wasn't dead yet. When I asked, she apparently wasn't mutated, either. Just bald, like Staci and the toxic marshmallow.

None of us were too excited about the challenge, I had to say. Why couldn't it just be like the first season, where the most dangerous thing was shark-infested waters or golf balls disguised as hail? Not _chemical waste,_ and not in an enclosed mine!

It got worse. Zoey asked if we could at least get a hint about where the statues were, but apparently, something in the mine had gotten hold of them and Chris didn't yet know where they'd gone.

Brick asked the next question, his face anxious. "Is it well-lit down there?"

"It's a _mine,_ bro." Chris reminded him. "Pitch-black, all the way. There are flashlights and fireflies inside. First come, first serve."

Then we really had to get going. The Maggots grabbed the flashlights first, and also took an elevator down to the depths of the mine. As for the four of us, we'd have to shimmy down the ropes and wouldn't you know it, Brick ended up falling. He was hanging onto the ropes, but then Jo threw the jar of fireflies to him, and basic instinct to catch it prevailed.

At least Brick survived, but then Lightning landed on him, and I landed on Lightning. Well, sort of. He actually seemed to have wanted to catch me, which meant I blushed quite a lot.

Jo stopped just above us. "Thanks for breaking our fall!" she teased Brick.

"Wait, the fireflies!" I exclaimed. The jar hadn't broken, but it had come unscrewed, and the fireflies were fast leaving.

"Quick, we have to catch our light source!" Jo said, snapping to attention. She jumped off the rope and picked up the jar, chasing after the fireflies.

"Wait..." Brick said weakly.

"Losers wait!" Lightning yelled at him. "Me and them gotta go!" Well, I would've waited for Brick, but Lightning dragged me off with them. And although I wasn't scared of the dark like Brick was, I wasn't too keen on waiting in pitch-black, and it wasn't like Lightning was going to let me wait. He was stronger than me, talking brute force, and so I knew it was useless to protest.

"Sorry, Brick!" I called as I left with the team. "Don't worry, you'll catch up – and if you don't, we'll come back here once we've got the statue!"

You know what happened to our light source? Jo got Lightning to chase the fireflies to her, and she caught them...by using Lightning's head as the jar lid. "Looking good, Light Source!" she teased.

Poor guy. I felt a bit sorry for him. Enough to stand up for him. "You know something, Jo? You are starting to sound totally pathetic. Don't you have anything better to do than make fun of the rest of us? Or are you just killing time until we vote you off for copying Heather?" (Yeah, yeah, I just compared her to the magnificent villainess of the old cast – maybe I was being a little too complimentary, considering she won last season).

Jo scowled. "Like you're any better, Airhead. Or are you really vapid enough to have forgotten what you said to me a few days ago?"

"Whatever." I shrugged. "I was just saying that if you tried to be nicer or more feminine, Brick might actually-" I cut myself off when Jo narrowed her eyes further. Maybe it was a good idea not to talk about that with Lightning still under the impression that Jo was male.

Well, she tried to tell him again about ten minutes later. She was saying something about how firefly bites weren't poisonous, and Lightning said "I hear you, dude!"  
"I'm _not_ a dude!" Jo finally managed to get the words out.

"Man, please!" Lightning insisted. "I can _see_ you're a dude!" I started giggling, but stopped immediately when the chemical badges changed colour.

"Uh-oh..." I murmured. "Half our time's up, guys. We better get moving!"

Lightning grinned, and said "See? Even Danni can tell you're a dude." I hadn't meant anything like that by the word 'guys', but I shrugged and smiled.

"But seriously," I said, "We've got fifteen minutes to live down here!"

Lightning went into a panic. "This ain't right! Man, I never kissed a Superbowl ring!"

"And I've never had a serious boyfriend." I mourned.

"And I've never kissed a guy." Jo said, actually sounding serious for once.

Lightning looked at her weird, and then said awkwardly "Uh...yeah. It's cool, dude. Lightning don't judge."

I couldn't help smiling at that, although I was still stressing out about losing half our time in the mine. And it was nice that Lightning, though uncomfortable, at least tried not to judge gays. And at that moment, I sort of wanted to ask if Jo had kissed a girl.

I kept quiet, though. No point in antagonizing her again when we only had fifteen minutes to finish the challenge.

We continued wandering the mines blindly. Suddenly, Lightning spoke up. "Hey, why's Brick taking so long to catch up?"

"We should've waited for him." I sighed. "He must be so scared on his own."

"I doubt it." Jo argued. "Haven't either of you noticed how large and in charge Brick's become? He doesn't need us!" She looked at Lightning. "And he'll get rid of you first chance he gets."

In one minute, I was trying hard to stop them from making a pact to vote Brick off next time we lost. And, wouldn't you know it, two seconds after this, Brick actually showed up, explaining that he'd been "engaging the enemy".

You know what actually happened? Well, in short, we lost. But it wasn't our fault, seriously! But guess who'd actually taken the statues. None other than feral freak Ezekiel. He'd once been a normal teenager, like the rest of us, back on the first season. But he'd been voted off first, after he made a few sexist comments. Then, he got taken out first again on the third season, but stayed on the plane, hiding. Somehow, he'd ended up turning totally feral, so he no longer talked, and seemed almost invincible, even surviving last season's volcano eruption after tearing the prize money away from Heather and falling into the volcano.

The thing was, he was apparently able to command these giant mutant gophers, who kept the four of us hanging from their mouths while the Maggots arrived. Well, okay, Anne Maria was already there,and Ezekiel kept giving her stuff. When the Maggots arrived, she was just exclaiming over this diamond he'd given her. "Now that's what I'm talking about! Bada- _bling_!"

"Congratulations, Helmet Head!" Jo snapped from where we were. "Now get your freaky boyfriend to let us go!"

"Oh well, we'll never get those statues now." Scott remarked to his team, seeming, as usual whenever his team lost, suspiciously happy.

"Shh!" Dawn hushed him. "We don't want to disturb the gophers. That will only make things harder on us and them."

Jo actually got us out of danger by releasing the fireflies on Lightning's head. They bothered the gophers enough for them to drop us, and we headed out while Lightning went to get the statue. But as Ezekiel launched himself at our strongest teammate, Chris' voice filled the mines. "If you can hear this, congrats! You're not dead yet! Wherever you are, immediately discard your bombs, I mean, backpacks, and run!"

There were mining carts out, and we could've been the first out without our packs, even if we didn't have the statue. The Maggots won by part luck – their statue ended up stuck in Anne Maria's hair. But we were also last out for one reason. Half the Maggots were nearly killed by the gophers – Mike was trying to hold them off, while Zoey and Dawn were hanging back. I mean, Dawn probably could have talked to them, but she looked as if she was about to faint (later on, I realized I'd been feeling ill, too – it was an early reaction to our exposure to chemical waste). But they survived for just one very important reason:  
Brick went back to save them.

Yeah, you heard me. Brick saved the other team.

As it turned out, the challenge was just a way to close off the mine, via the explosives we'd been carrying. And now, our already outnumbered team was going to get smaller.

I conferred with Brick that night. "I have a feeling Jo and Lightning are going to vote you off." I told him. "But I don't think you should leave just for saving the enemy. They just want to win, but I understand why you went back for them. But to have any hope of staying with the game, we need to vote together. It'll force a tie, but it's your only chance of staying."

Brick gave a sigh. "Well, I couldn't let them die, could I? That would be against my code." He looked up at me. "Who did you want to vote for?"

"Jo." I said instantly. "It's partly a selfish vote, because I think she wants me gone, too. But just before you found us in the mines, she was trying to make a pact with Lightning to get rid of you. If you hadn't saved the other team, I probably could talk him around, but there's no chance of that now – not that I don't think you should've done it." I added. "After all, Zoey and Dawn are my friends, and although I don't know Mike that well, he deserves to live, too. Please, vote with me?"

Brick looked torn. "I don't know if I want to vote for Jo," he admitted shyly, "But if it's my only hope of staying...well, this is a game. She'll understand."

So we both voted for Jo. But Chris decided to pull another little thing on us. "Well, since it's a tie, and I needed to make another double elimination in the future, I made a decision. When I looked at the votes, I decided that there will be _no_ tiebreaker! Instead, both Jo and Brick will be taking the Hurl of Shame – _together_!"

Jo got into the Hurl of Shame without much argument, although she snapped at me as I walked down the dock to say goodbye. "You know your team would've been lost without me! Good luck winning with just you and Brightning, blondie!"

Meanwhile, as Brick jumped in to join her, a voice called "Brick, wait!"

Zoey, Mike and Dawn were standing at the other end of the dock. They all saluted, and Brick managed to smile at them and salute back.

Oh, and another thing. Anne Maria tried to take the Hurl, too, but Chris wouldn't let her. She thought she didn't need the money with her diamond, so she wanted to quit. Chris quickly burst her bubble by telling her it was cubic zurconia.

There was one last thing I wanted to do before going to bed. I'd wanted to help Zoey out for a while, and I didn't want to bother waiting until the free day.

So I approached Mike after half my teammates were gone. "Hey, Mike? Can I talk to you?"

The guy looked surprised, and said "Um, sure."

We talked on the steps of the Rat cabins, since only Lightning had any reason to be there and he'd already gone into the boys' side.

"Thing is," I said in a low voice, "I wanted to talk to you about Zoey. It would take a love-blind moron not to see that you two are absolutely perfect for each other. But that Vito character of yours is the only reason Zoey hasn't said anything, because she wants you to pick a side. Can't you do that?"

Mike looked terrified, like he was backed into a corner. "Well..." he stammered, "The thing is, I...I..."

I felt a bit sorry for him. I was starting to realize something. "Mike," I said gently, "Are you trying to tell me the reason you keep doing it? Is it something you just _have_ to do?"

"Um, kind of..." Mike said, still sounding nervous. "I mean, I...um..."

I could tell he really didn't want to tell me, but I forced myself to keep pressing. If he didn't tell me, I couldn't help Zoey. "Mike, you can tell me why." I insisted. "I'm not going to judge. And I swear, if you tell me, I won't say a word to anyone else. But if you like Zoey as much as you've been saying to her, you have got to explain."

Mike gave a sigh. He sounded defeated. "Okay. I'll tell you. But Danni, you have to keep to that. Don't tell anyone else, especially not Zoey."

I nodded. "I promise. Now what is it?"

Mike said it all in a rush. "I have Disassociative Identity Disorder." I looked at him blankly. "It used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder." he clarified.

Well, I didn't know what I'd been expecting, but not that. "Then...how come you got on Total Drama?" I asked. "I thought they had prejudice against that – something about fragility."

"I didn't admit to it on the audition sheet." Mike admitted. "I just wanted to keep it secret from everyone else and prove I could live in the real word on my own."

I wasn't sure what to think. I mean, I understood Mike a lot better now. And since he couldn't help having a mental disorder, I had to keep to my word and not judge him. After all, Mike himself was such a nice guy – I couldn't fault him for something he couldn't change. That would just mean I was a really awful person. And I didn't want to be that person – the one that thinks every person with a mental disorder has to be a freak.

And as Mike said, he came on the show to prove he could handle himself. And for the most part, he'd done really well. I had to be supportive. Besides, I still didn't think he was a freak – he just had an issue. And once I realized that, it was really easy to be sincerely nice.

I smiled. "As far as I'm concerned, you've proved that. And...well...I promise I won't tell unless you give the OK, but are you really sure you want to keep it from Zoey? I don't think she'll judge you. I mean, I'm–"

"I don't want to take that chance." Mike said firmly. "I've had enough bad experiences to know better than to be upfront about it. _Please_ don't say anything to her."

I managed another smile. "I promise."

And then I went into my cabin, the day's events swirling in my head.

 **Yeah, I'm kind of sleepy right now, so this might not have been my best work. At least I'm done with it. And now Lightning and Danni are a team of two! Oh, and by the way, since there's no Dakota, no point in bringing Sam back. So I'm bringing back an extra veteran with Gwen. Wanna take a wild guess who it is? Believe me, it's got an easy answer.**

 **On a side note, Mike's disorder was only called MPD before 1994, when the name was changed to the one I used here, to make the symptoms more accurate. I've used the current name in earlier fics where someone tried to correct me, thinking I was referring to the wrong disorder, so I thought I'd mention it here so no one gets confused.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Well, it's time to get set adrift! Thanks for reviewing, Pokemon FTW, Liz The Sweet Writer, Nicky Haugh, OmniPlanckInstant, RebelToasters12, SuperKitty4789, BluXRE, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse, and the guest reviewer.**

 **Also, you will soon find out who's stuck with Gwen. I'm actually shocked that no one guessed who it was!**

I spent the free day with Dawn. We'd barely talked properly since Chris split us up, and I wanted to see how she was doing. "How's the team?" I asked. "Is Scott picking on you at all? How are the others?"

Dawn smiled. "They're all right." she said. "Scott's too busy trying to gain Zoey's trust to pick on anyone. I've warned her that he's not to be trusted, but I think she's not sure who to believe. And Anne Maria is...all right. She's been pretty quiet recently – at least, she hasn't argued with Zoey since I joined. Mike's aura has been pretty nervous for the last few days, but he seems to have calmed down a bit today."

I grinned. "I got him to spill his secret last night. But I said I wouldn't tell anyone."

Dawn gave me her "I-already-know-what-you're-thinking" smile. "It's good he felt he could trust you." she said. "Keeping it a secret was becoming a struggle for him, and I can tell that your reaction must have reassured him a little that not everyone would hate him."

"Did you know what his secret was?" I asked. "Like, was it in his aura?"

Dawn nodded. "It's like a rainbow, because of all the different parts." she explained. "I think he should tell Zoey. I can tell that she'll probably accept it and like him just the same."

I smiled. "I said that to him last night! But he said he'd had enough experiences that went wrong not to risk it again. Have you told Mike that she'll be all right with it?"

"Not yet." Dawn answered. "I've told Zoey that Mike is interested in her, but she's not sure what to believe. I wasn't sure that I should get involved."

"Well, if you tell him now," I said slowly, "He might think I broke my word. If you do tell him that Zoey will be OK with it, just make it clear that I didn't tell you and that you aren't going to tell anyone else."

Dawn looked thoughtful. Finally, she said, "I'll tell him, but not yet. I think I've figured out some of his triggers, so I'll try to prevent them from appearing. It'll be beneficial to the team, after all. Then once I tell him, he'll know I'm trying to help."

I gave a sigh. "Well, I guess whether you win or lose depends on how Lightning and I deal with being outnumbered."

"Good luck."

Around twilight, I asked Lightning if he wanted me to work out a bit, but he said "Not tonight. I'm kinda tired. Think I'll turn in after dinner."

We had a weird turkey pasta dish for dinner. I mostly tried to just eat the pasta without the turkey, but I don't think I succeeded. Thing is, I didn't remember that much after dinner. I noticed that everyone seemed to be half-dead on their feet...well, sitting on the benches. Lightning finished his serve first, and by the time I was halfway through, he was already slumped over the table.

The Maggots weren't doing much better. Mike looked as if he was struggling to keep his eyes open, Zoey was already failing, Dawn's eyes were only half-open, and Scott was almost lying on the bench. I didn't notice Anne Maria.

And then I remembered nothing.

When I woke up, it was late morning, and I started to realize what had happened. We'd had turkey. _Mutant_ turkey. And we all knew from Thanksgiving that turkey caused drowsiness, so that meant...

I was suddenly wide awake, taking in where I was. I was on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Lightning was still asleep on the same raft, and there was a placard with our team symbol. And right beside us was another raft sporting the Maggots' symbol, and everyone on the team, except Dawn, was still lying there, eyes closed.

Dawn was sitting in the meditative position, but after a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked over at me.

"I sensed someone else was awake." she said quietly. "I thought it might be a good idea to wait for everyone until they were ready to wake up."

"I can't believe this happened!" I complained. "I mean, _seriously?_ Chef's food was always a killer for energy, but I can't believe he's making sedatives with it now." I paused. "But shouldn't that mean we should all wake up around the same time, since we all got the same portion?"

"You and I probably disgested less turkey than the others." Dawn explained. "I tried to avoid it, since I'm usually vegetarian. I probably just got the effect from the turkey's effects on the pasta, hence why I woke first."

"And I tried to eat little of it." I added. "I was hungry enough to eat some of the turkey with the pasta, but probably not as much as the others."I groaned. "No way! It's going to take _hours_ to get Lightning to wake up!"

"It shouldn't be too long." Dawn reassured me. "That was fifteen hours ago. Everyone should be awake in the next hour."

She was right. Mike was the first to wake up. For the last half-hour before he woke up he kept mumbling stuff in different voices – both ones I'd heard and ones I'd hadn't. I picked out five different voices – Mike's normal voice, the old man Chester, the gymnast Svetlana, the annoying Vito, and one I hadn't heard – some character with an Australian accent. It was lucky for him no one who didn't know about his disorder didn't hear that. Zoey woke up only a few minutes after that, and Scott soon followed.

I managed to rouse Lightning myself after Scott woke up, but it took him ten minutes to get his bearings properly, within which time Anne Maria finally opened her eyes and started complaining about not being able to fix herself up.

We'd all worked out most of what had happened. Once the turkey had sedated us, we'd been set adrift. Sort of like last season, when the groups were dropped out of the plane while they were still asleep and then nearly died via Niagara Falls.

"Great." Scott muttered, eyeing the water. "Now we're gonna be some stupid shark's dinner."

"How about we call Fang, then?" I teased. Scott still owned a shark tooth Fang had left stuck in him when he first tried to eat our team. Now, it seemed that Fang was constantly going after Scott. Oh, he'd probably eat one of us if we were unlucky enough to get in the way, but Scott was his prime target.

"Don't worry." Mike reassured him. "They'll never find us in the middle of all this junk." It was true – a lot of random stuff was floating around our rafts. It was worse than the Boston Harbour after the famous Tea Party.

That was the moment Mike spotted a fedora. "Hey, sweet hat!" he exclaimed, putting it on. Then his eyes bulged for a second, and he inhaled sharply.

And I knew. I knew before he even opened his mouth, that I was seeing someone else – I guessed the Australian guy I'd heard talking before he woke up.

My thoughts were confirmed when he spoke to Zoey. I wasn't sure exactly what he said, but it was a clearly flirtatious remark.

I started making signals with my eyes to Dawn, and she nodded. She ran over to whatever-his-name-was-right-now, and pulled the hat off, throwing it further away. Instantly, Mike's eyes bulged again, and he went back to normal. "Sorry, Mike," she said apologetically, "I kind of dropped the hat into the water."

And finally, Chris and Chef decided to make an appearance on little water-scooters.

"Morning, suckers!" is how Chris greeted us.

"Morning, sadist." I shot back. Look, I was annoyed, okay? "You know, you could've just set us adrift while we were asleep naturally. You didn't have to knock us out."

"I couldn't leave it to chance." Chris said casually. "And just be grateful I left the method to Chef. I wanted to slip you actual sleeping pills, which means you'd have to do this in the dark, since there's no way you'd be awake for 24 hours. And we know for a fact that Dawn doesn't sleep much cause we checked out the cabin footage." The host grinned for a moment, and added "By the way, it's pretty sad that you need a hug so much that you hug your pillow. Waiting for someone real?"

"Hey, leave her alone!" Lightning defended. "Just tell us what the challenge is so we can win it!"

So Chris explained. Our first task was to get to shore. After that, we'd start the second part.

Okay, obvious thing to remember – there were five Maggots and just two of us Rats. "What about this," I suggested. "You use our team placard to row, and I swim and kick to get the raft to shore?"

"Sure, sounds good." Lightning said. Then he added "But I'm still team captain, right? We would've done that idea even if you hadn't come up with it!"

I didn't argue. I just dived into the ocean and began kicking and pushing.

As it was, we still didn't get to shore first. Mike, Dawn and Scott all swam and pushed like I was, and then we got waylaid by a squid. Okay, it went for the Maggots, too, but they managed to make it hit their raft so it acted as a lever, sending them flying straight to shore, while Lightning and I got soaked and struggled to shore for nothing.

Then Chris finally explained the rest of the challenge. "The second part of today's challenge started as a practical joke involving Total Drama classic competitor Gwen, but it's turned into more of a rescue mission!"

I frowned. Gwen had been a pretty cool competitor during her three seasons. Well, I liked her in the first one, where she made it to the finals. I felt sorry for her in the second one – yeah, she had to dump Trent, and it wasn't her fault the other team blackmailed her. I didn't like her as much as I had in the third season, mainly because I just didn't get why she didn't just tell Courtney about her and Duncan's kiss before someone else did. She said she'd tell Courtney if it happened again, but she should've just done it from the first – I mean, she made it clear how guilty she felt.

But anyway, Chris was hanging out in a helicopter by this point, but he switched on a monitor that was standing on the shore. It showed Gwen in a dark space. She lifted her head, but hit a...wait, was she in a _coffin?_

"What the..." she began. "I'm buried alive? _Again?_!" She pounded on the top. "CHRIS!"

Mike glared up at Chris. "Burying someone alive is seriously dangerous, even by your standards!"

"And Gwen's _already_ been buried alive." I added. "Phobia Factor, anyone? Wait – that's why, isn't it? Because that's Gwen's worst fear?"

"Just a coincidence." Chris shrugged. "And we know it's dangerous. That's why we're using the Buddy System."

And at that moment, we heard another voice from the monitor, just as familiar as Gwen's. "What's going on?" muttered the voice sleepily.

Gwen's eyes widened. " _Courtney_?"

Yes, Courtney. We all knew who she was. Preppy, competitive, whiny, bossy Courtney, who'd been Duncan's girlfriend for almost a year before he dumped her for Gwen. Understandably, this made her furious. Unfortunately, it also made her unfocused, and most of her anger was directed at Gwen. Her lack of focus also caused her to become the first member of Team Amazon to let a guy get to her (that being Alejandro, by the way, since I wasn't talking about the break-up).

And now, the two girls were locked up in a wooden crate together. Oh, Courtney and Gwen had bonded briefly, mainly because Heather was on their team and neither of them could stand her, but once Duncan decided he wanted Gwen, all that was sent flying out of the plane before either of them were.

The monitor zoomed out to show Gwen's former teammate and former almost-friend lying next to her. Her eyes widened too, but not in fear. "All right, what's going on?" she demanded angrily. "What did you do, Gwen? Why are we here? Is this some kind of stupid revenge thing for last winter, because if I recall, that was _your_ fault!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't spent every moment with Duncan trying to make him perfect, he might not have turned to me!" Gwen shot back. "And besides, you two weren't dating when he kissed me!"

"We were so!" Courtney yelled. "Now tell me how to get out of this! Don't make me call my lawyers again!"

"Will you _stop_ with the threatening me with your lawyers?! It wasn't marriage! And besides, this is clearly something to do with Chris – my phone doesn't get service here, so we have to be somewhere on Camp Wawanakwa. Underground." Gwen's voice had temporarily gotten stronger when she'd been arguing with Courtney, but now it went all tight and terrified again.

"Do you want two contestants to die?" I yelled up at Chris. "Because you know that the longer they stay in there, the more likely it is that Courtney will strangle her."

"I said it was a rescue mission." Chris pointed out.

So, the Maggots got a map to the place where Gwen and Courtney were buried. Lightning and I got the penalty of heavy belts that chained our hands to our sides, and Lightning even got a metal detector. Weird, right?

"I _was_ going to make Danni wear it..." Chris admitted, "But I thought it would be more amusing to see if she could do cartwheels in chains."

I scowled, and I would've folded my arms if they weren't chained. "Whatever, McClean. I can backflip with no hands anyway, but I wasn't planning on cartwheeling or backflipping to the location."

The race to the crate was really VERY boring. We actually got there just as the Maggots were already digging. I'd rather explain what happened after our metal detector made us win.

Yeah, we won. We found keys that undid our belts, and then one to unlock the chest the girls were in.

After a few seconds, I heard banging and screaming.

"Lightning, dig here!" I pointed, and the two of us scrabbled at the dirt the chest was buried under. Then Lightning unlocked it, and I helped pull the two girls out. "Hi, guys." I said cheerfully. "By the way, thanks for keeping control, Courtney. I was worried you were going to kill Gwen."

"I should..." Courtney muttered ominously. "But I'm not jeopardizing my career for that."

I smiled at Gwen, next. "Hey there, Gwen. Sorry you had to go through that again. Guess you won't be coming back next time the show asks?"

Gwen's trademark scowl appeared, but it wasn't directed at me. "Yeah, definitely not." she muttered.

So yeah, Lightning and I actually won the challenge. Two against five, and we still won!

But as usual, the one good thing about the day had to have the edge taken off it by something. When I sat on the steps, watching the Maggots come back from the campfire ceremony, I saw four figures, which I expected. But I noticed that the shortest silhouette had little bunches. Not long fair hair.

I didn't waste time, running over to the Maggots' cabin. I knocked on the girls' door, and when Zoey answered, I didn't have to ask. I could tell instantly that I was right.

"You guys voted Dawn off? _Why_?"

"You gonna come in or what?" Anne Maria said from the inside. I came in, to find her spraying her hair as usual. "'Course we voted her off. Gal's a threat. Gotta vote someone off."

"I didn't vote for her." Zoey said softly. "But no one really screwed up this time. I actually ended up voting for..." she cast a nervous look at her roommate. "...someone I knew no one else would vote for, because I couldn't decide."

I gave a sigh. "I guess I see your point, and I guess there's no point in hiding this – a couple of weeks ago, back when we were first on here, Dawn and I made a pact to stick together until the final two. I mean, B was with us, too, but once he was gone, it was just the two of us. Guess I'm going to have to find a new opponent."

The two girls were staring at me, probably shocked I'd actually admitted it. Anne Maria spoke first. "That took guts, girl. It was also incredibly stupid to tell us outright, but it took guts. Just don't expect me to let you into the finale without a fight. This girl looks out for number one!"

I shrugged and smiled, which seemed to release Zoey's voice, too. She seemed just as cool about it. "Well, I've watched the show. Everyone does that, so I kind of expected it." She paused. "Although you were so friendly with both teams, I expected you to be the last person to make a long-term alliance."

I shrugged again. "Well, I don't have it now. Next order of business – make Scott disappear. There's only six of us left, and the merge is coming. If he stays, I'm dead."

"He doesn't seem that bad." Zoey ventured. "He was really upset back in the modeling challenge when the Sasquatch kidnapped Lindsay and Dawn. He was saying that if Dawn couldn't talk to it, they were doomed. He's an okay guy, deep down."

"And he didn't vote for Dawn tonight." I said sarcastically, but there was no point in arguing with Zoey. Instead, I went over to the boys' side, and knocked.

Thank heavens, it was Mike who answered the knock. "Danni?" He looked confused, as to why I was calling over.

"Hey." I smiled. "Mind if we talk? Like, without anyone else listening in?"

"Sure." Mike agreed. We went back to the campfire pit, since Chris was long gone and we could see each other in the firelight, plus there were plenty of stumps to sit and talk.

"I've just spoken to Zoey." I explained. "I'm pretty sure the merge is coming up, and I think we both know that if you don't give her a proper explanation soon, you'll be off this island and will have lost your one shot with her. I know I promised I wouldn't tell, but I think one of us will have to. So it has to be you."

Mike gave a sigh. "Dawn said the same thing. She said Zoey would most likely be able to handle it, but that means there's still a chance she won't."

I sighed too. "Mike, look at it this way. In Zoey's eyes, you're a nice guy whose 'acting' means that you can't be with her, because you're always 'acting' like you're into Anne Maria. That, or you're a guy with multiple personalities who can't do anything about it, but the real you is totally devoted to her. Which of those do you want to be?"

Mike smiled slighly. "I guess the second is better..." Then he frowned again. "But I need more time. I swear I'll tell Zoey at some point, but I need more time to win her over."

"Do you have any control over keeping your alters under control?" I asked.

"Well...some." Mike admitted. "Vito stays in as long as my shirt stays on. And Svetlana only comes out when I have to attempt a major physical challenge. The others-"

"What about the Australian one?" I asked. "I didn't get his name..."

"Manitoba Smith." Mike supplied. "He comes out when I put on a fedora."  
I frowned. "Then why did you put one on this morning?"

"Oh..." Mike laughed nervously. "It's weird. I actually like fedoras. It's like I've forgotten its effect whenever I see one, and I just _have_ to try it on. Maybe it's his influence, wanting me to try it on so he can come out."

I nodded. "Okay. Tell you what. Since I think the merge will be soon, I'll try to help when it comes and make sure those three don't come out unless you honestly need one to – because I'm pretty sure that Svetlana will have to come out at some point."

Mike shrugged. "Well, she usually goes away as soon as the physical challenge is over."

I paused. "Wait a second...she's a girl? I mean, I knew she had a high-pitched voice, but..."

"I'm actually one of the most consistent people with my disorder." Mike said. "I looked it up. Most people have male and female alters – so I guess I'm kind of lucky to only have one female. Plus I guess her trigger is kind of her way of looking out for me – you know, making sure I look awesome with her gymnastic skills?"

"Okay, this is going off-track." I said. "I'm kind of tired, so I'm going to go to bed. We can talk a bit more about this later on. Good thing we have a break tomorrow."

"Okay," Mike smiled a little, "Goodnight, Danni."

"Goodnight!" I called, walking back to my cabin. How was it that I'd become prime matchmaker and peacemaker on this island?  
 **That's why you should work on your own love life for the rest of the competition, Danni. Hope you all liked this chapter. Yes, I know I practically skipped the whole challenge, but seriously, at least most of it was stuff you haven't all seen before! And yeah, I know most of the mergers were already there (just Anne Maria instead of Cameron and Danni instead of Jo) but that can still change a lotta things!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Okay. The merge! Finally, I can get to the point where...oops, near spoiler there. I'm just so excited about this episode!**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Liz The Sweet Writer, yeezynight14, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, OmniPlanckInstant, SuperKitty4789, RebelToasters12 and Bloodylilcorpse.**

The break was fine, except for one thing. I noticed Scott kept giving me these sly glances. He had a sort of smug "I-know-something-you-don't" look on his face.

Oh, and Lightning got me up early to train for upcoming physical challenges, again. I pointed out that the merge was coming up, but he just pointed out again that he thought it might as well be the only two Toxic Rats left who got to the finale, and I wouldn't beat him anyway.

Well, the next challenge was a mix of physical and common sense. Oh, and luck.

Chris brought us all out of our cabins with a machine that sounded like an air horn, standing on top of the Maggots' cabin. "Good morning, campers!" he greeted us. "Today, we have a very special treat!"

Lightning gave a gasp. "Fantasy football?"

So did Zoey. "Espressos?" she said hopefully.

"Helicopter bear hunt?" Scott suggested.  
I decided to throw out what I would consider a treat, although I knew it wasn't anything of the sort. "Trip to the mainland's nearest mall?"

"Nope!" Chris answered to all of them. "It's merge day! No more Team Rat, no more Team Maggot!" He jumped off the roof and landed unharmed. "From now on, it's every man, woman and...damn it, I wrote some of my script before the show started and I assumed Cameron would still be here. Now I can't make that joke! Every man and woman for themselves."

I frowned. "How come you assumed Cameron was still going to be here? I knew he was brainy, but how would he have survived all the physical challenges?" I paused. "Oh wait...Beth and Owen, right? Both underdogs – so you expected Cameron to be added to the ranks of underdog finalists. I get it!"

I went to the confessional after that, since we got a bit of free time, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. "I knew it! The merge is here, and unless I'm mistaken, it could be a lot of fun from here on in! I think Lightning might want to form an alliance with me, and...yeah, that's an okay idea. I've decided now...I think I should give him a chance. But not yet – I'm going to wait until the season is over. Unless we both get eliminated before the finale, in which case...but that's not gonna happen. I'm going to win!"

Weird, huh? In the space of two and a half weeks, I'd gone from playing-for-fun to going-to-win.

Okay, the reason we got a break was because Chris dropped a concrete block on the Maggots' cabin and let them have some time to find a way to get their stuff out, if possible, so once I'd made my confessional, I went to help out.

Anne Maria was less bothered than Zoey, since she'd left most of her valuables (hairbrush, hairspray, hairdryer) within the confines of her masses of hair, but she still only had the clothes she was wearing. Both of them had lost their nightclothes and makeup bags.

Lightning didn't help. He was too busy counting as he used a log as a dumbbell – plus he accidentally counted ten before nine, so he couldn't really do two things at once.

Mike actually did find an old pair of Brick's boots in the rubble, but when he threw them to Zoey – well, you know that story when foot odours can put people to sleep if they're bad enough? Well, Zoey went all faint, fell off the roof, and probably would've gotten injured if Mike hadn't caught her.

When I saw that, I caught Mike's eye and gave him a thumbs up. If only he could keep his personalities from coming out (and he was doing pretty well at the moment), things would be perfect.

"Getting jealous, huh?"

I jumped. Scott had apparently noticed me watching them and had decided to taunt me about it. I scowled at him and replied "As a matter of fact, if you'd been watching more closely, you would've seen I was encouraging them."

"Oh, I didn't mean that kind of jealous." Scott shrugged. "I meant that you want your own loverboy. Only you don't want to get distracted, so you thought the making out can wait until the show's over."

I scowled harder. "How did you-" Then I gasped. "I can't believe it! You were listening in on my confessional, weren't you?"

Scott just shrugged again. "Does it matter how I know? I think what matters is whether I tell Lightning you like him or not before you're ready to let him know."

"And why would I care?" I said, although my heart seemed to know why and was beating hard in an attempt to tell me that I really wanted to stay single until I left the show.

"Because you know that you can't stay focused if you have a boyfriend to worry about." Scott said slyly.

Yeah, he was right. I'd told myself that not saying anything was a precaution in case my focus dropped, but really, it was a necessity. Last time I'd had a boyfriend, I'd been in la-la land all the time, thinking of him and only of him. The relationship hadn't lasted long because he turned out to be one of those "bed-the-cheerleader" types, but I'd never forgotten the way he'd made me feel, even if he hadn't meant anything in reality. I couldn't let that happen again!

"And," Scott continued, "We both know that if Mr Mega-Jock knows you like him, he'll insist you be his girlfriend straight off, and unlike _some_ people, he keeps his head in the game at all times. Your gameplay will fail, his will not. And once you're gone, we'll make him lose, and he'll be convinced it's cause he let your elimination distract him, and he won't want you any more."

My heart hammered, although I tried to stay cool. "You don't know that'll happen." I insisted.

But Scott wasn't going to give up. "You'll still lose focus." he said, his voice calm. "Of course, I could be convinced not to say a word to Lightning, if you do something for me."

I gave a sigh. "Tell me what it is, and I'll think about it."

I couldn't believe it when he told me. "You know more about Mike than you're letting on. I overheard you and Dawn whispering about it a few days ago. Don't think I don't notice things like that. If you tell me what Mike's deal is, I won't breathe a word to Lightning."

I was caught in a dilemma. I promised not to give Mike away, no matter how much I wanted to. But if Lightning knew we liked each other, it would kill my gameplay.

I wondered if I could word it vaguely enough. "Mike's deal is that he's nervous about telling Zoey how he feels." I said finally. "His way of coping is to step out of himself once in a while. He can't really help it."

Unfortunately, the guy could read between the lines. His dark blue eyes narrowed. "Oh, he can't help it? Are you sure you're not saying he's got MPD?"

Well, it wasn't called that any more. "Of course I'm sure of what I'm saying!" I snapped. "What's the matter? Not happy that you can't blackmail someone else with the information I gave you? Well, I kept up my end of the deal."

Scott just smirked at me. "I guess I'll have to assume I'm right, judging by how defensive you are. Deal done. I won't say a word to Lightning."

"And if you say a word to Mike, _or_ Zoey, or Anne Maria for that matter, or Lightning, you'll be so sorry!" I hissed. "I'm friends with everyone, and trust me, it won't be hard to convince them to turf you."

"Yeah, right." Scott said smugly. "Zoey trusts me. It won't take much for Anne Maria to vote you off, and if Zoey knows you were hiding something, she'll vote the same way, and you know she can convince Mike to do the same."

There was nothing more I could do.

Chris called us to explain the challenge soon after that conversation. "And to show you how it's done, I give you Total Drama's favourite juvenile delinquent...Duncan!"

I wasn't surprised to see one of the most popular contestants to ever be on the show, with both a fanbase and a hatebase. I mean, Courtney and Gwen were here – it was obvious that the guy they argued over would get an episode. As far as the populars went, only Owen and Heather needed an episode now (it was only later on that I found out Owen did make a cameo appearance).

"Duncan still owes me some extra time for skipping out on World Tour," Chris explained, "So I saved an extra painful challenge demo, just for him."

At the time, Duncan was tied to a stretcher with a mask, Hannibal Lecter-style. However, he could still talk. "Eat dirt, McLean." was all he said, but even though I couldn't actually see it, I felt his scowl.

Okay, so the challenge was – well, part one was to try and find a key in Chef's kitchen. There would be six – enough for one each. Each of them would work on one of Chef's vintage go-karts (at this point, Chef told Chris not to let us drive his go-karts, but I don't think he was paying attention). Then Chris got Chef to untie Duncan to demo, and...yeah, he made a run for it.

"Keep running, Duncan!" I yelled after him. "Tell civilization we don't expect to be back until we get reincarnated!"

I heard him laughing as he disappeared into the distance.

That was when Scott pulled Mike aside, and I sidled closer to listen to what he was saying. "Here's the deal;" he said, "You help me win today's challenge, and I don't tell Zoey the truth about all your...funny characters."

Mike stared at him. "How do you know about that?"

"He blackmailed me!" I rushed to explain. "Then I tried to fob him off when he asked, but he sort of ended up guessing and I'm so sorry, Mike, please don't hate me, I didn't mean for him to know!"

So I had to keep an eye on them while I was searching for a key. Scott did absolutely nothing, making Mike do everything. And every time Mike tried to refuse, Scott made like he was going to tell Zoey.

At a moment when I was searching near Mike, I whispered in his ear "The only way to break this is to tell Zoey! She'd rather hear it from you than from him, and Dawn and I both think she'd be totally fine with it! And you know Dawn knows this kind of stuff, right?"

Mike gave a sigh. "I know, I know, but I'm not so sure."

I gave a sigh, too. "I'm sorry this happened, but your choices are telling Zoey, or letting Scott win."

It gets worse. Not only did Mike have to help Scott, but he had to ditch Zoey to do it. She was looking in a bucket, and some creature in it started pulling her in, grabbing onto her pigtails. I had to be the one to pull her out, although of course, the first person she called to for help was Mike.

Eventually, everyone found a key. Mike actually found a gold one, but Scott made him trade. Yeah, we were going to HAVE to vote him off.

The rest of the challenge had a simple idea. We had to take one of Chef's go-karts (and try to find a way to evade him with it), and take a paint can with us. Then, we had to tag three spots. First one to tag all three didn't just get invincibility – they were the only one who got to vote. So they had full charge of who went home – meaning Scott was the only one I really didn't want to win. Mike would vote him off for sure, and if I talked to Lightning, I could probably persuade him. If Zoey won, I decided, I'd have to force Mike to tell her the truth, because otherwise, I had a suspicion she might vote him off. Anne Maria would most likely take Zoey out, which I didn't want to happen, either. So basically, I needed me, Mike or Lightning to win, but who knew how this would go?

We each took a spray can and iPad so we could navigate, and went for the go-karts. But getting past Chef wasn't easy. In fact, it was so hard that Lightning and I ended up caged, with Fang guarding, because we didn't grab our go-karts fast enough.

"We need to think of something to get away without getting near Fang." I said out loud.

"Don't worry, girl!" Lightning said. "Lightning can't be caged. He'll just widen the bars a little..." And soon, the bars were wide enough so we could both get out. And I had an idea of how to get past Fang.

"Hey, Lightning." I whispered. "Would you do me a favour? Tell Fang if he lets us go, he can ride in your go-kart, and you'll take him to find Scott? It's not a lie, it's just you have to make some stops to tag."

And you know what? He actually did it! My go-kart was a little slow, but I still made it to the first stop earlier than Lightning. Already, there was a pink heart, a purple clover, a blue cross, and a green tick. I sprayed an orange smiley face and jumped back in. There was no way I would win, but at least I could put up a good fight.

As I went to the second location, a weird stilted message came up from Chris. " _Listen up. Three landmarks wasn't tough enough so I added a fourth."_ The fourth one appeared on my iPad. " _Ain't it a doozy? The mountainside in the middle of the island. Now get tagging and don't spare the paint. McLean, out."_

Well, I still had a couple more smiley faces to draw, so I decided just to keep going from the second to the third, and from there to the third.

I knew I had to be too late when I reached the third one. It was a totem pole. Anne Maria was shimmying up it, but the pink heart and blue cross was already there. I knew the heart was Zoey, and the cross was either Scott or Mike – not sure which, but that meant I'd never reach the mountainside in time, so I just went straight there.

What a sight! Mike was shirtless when I got there, but he didn't seem to be Vito. His eyes were closed, but he was standing up, punching and pulling at himself.

"Mike, what is wrong with you?" a shocked Zoey cried out.

"Oh no!" I panicked. "Zoey, I have to tell you this now. I didn't want to keep it secret, but Mike made me promise not to tell you -"

"Tell me what?" Zoey asked, her eyes still fixed on Mike, a look of worry in them.

But at that moment, Mike suddenly stopped moving. He leant over, still.

Zoey moved closer to him. "Mike...are you okay?" she asked.

Mike suddenly opened his eyes. "Better than okay." He grinned. "I won!" Then he took Zoey's hands in his. "Zoey, listen. My characters – they're not just for show. I...I have multiple personalities."

Zoey paused. "That..." she looked over at me. "Is that what you were gong to say?"

I nodded. "Sorry, Mike, but she didn't get what was going on, so I felt like I had to say something." I smiled sincerely. "I'm glad you got in first."

And you know what? After all that drama, just as I'd predicted, Zoey was absolutely cool with it. She said that she loved oddballs, and Mike was the coolest one. "Multiple personalities just means there's more Mike to love."

It turned out, by the way, that the last landmark was a fake. And Lightning tagged it. It was a cliff face modeled to look like Chris – Chef had faked the message to pay Chris out for making us steal his go-karts.

And so who had won?

Zoey.

Her pink hearts showed up on every landmark they were supposed to, and apparently, she'd finished hers just before Scott had tagged his cross. Oh yeah, and Scott nearly got eaten by Fang with Lightning's help, but he should've waited until Scott didn't have his spray can. The poor mutant ended up with a blue tongue and no revenge.

I discussed the vote with Zoey when we were sitting around in the girls' cabin that night. "Have you thought about who you're going to take out?" I asked.

Zoey nodded. "Yes. I _was_ thinking about several people, but after what I saw today, I've decided – I trusted the wrong people in this game. I won't make that mistake again." Her usually friendly face was set and firm.

"Um...you mean everyone you trusted?" I felt a bit nervous. I'd never seen Zoey this determined.

Suddenly, her face relaxed and she laughed. "Did you think I meant you? Of course I didn't mean you, Danni! I know you kept stuff from me, but I totally get why you did – I would've trusted you a lot less if you had told me about Mike without him giving the okay. And he told me what happened today. You know who I shouldn't have trusted, don't you?"

And I knew. I grinned. "Thanks, Zoey! He was the last person I wanted to see in the finale!" And we grinned at each other.

And it happened .When Chris told Zoey to pick the loser, she stood up. "I thought about it." she said finally. "And the deciding point today was basic human decency." Her expression became firm. "One person today demanded special treatment through blackmail, and he's getting special treatment. No vote off." Her face relaxed slightly, and she even smiled a little as she turned to face him. "Sorry, Scott, but cheating doesn't pay. You're out."

Scott blinked at her, looking completely shocked. I couldn't help smiling at his face. Anne Maria outright laughed.

"Priceless!" she whispered to me.

"Yeah, I think so too." I whispered back. Then I thought of one thing I could do to prove to Scott that I was a better person than him. I stood up. "You know, Scotty boy, I could give you some advice as to how to get Fang to leave you alone?"

Scott narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously, but he took the comment. "How?"

"Give him his tooth back." I shrugged. "Obviously. Then he'd stop going after you specifically."

So Scott was given just enough time to toss the tooth back into the water underneath the dock for Fang to take back before he took the Hurl of Shame.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to miss him.

 **What will Revenge of the Island do without its main villain? Up the challenges, of course!**

 **Also, I have a question. Remember the predictions I asked you to make at the start? Think about what you wrote – how far Danni would go, who her friends would be, and who she might crush on. What do you think about the ones you made, compared to what's happened so far? Has your final two guess changed?**

 **BTW, if you're wondering what happened with Zoey winning, she got there a little earlier than in canon, so finished her heart before Scott threw the paint can at her. And yeah, he didn't know Vito's trigger, so what Scott did was knock Mike out after he said he was going to save Zoey. Then Scott dumped Mike's unconscious body in his go-kart and drive Mike's attached one to the mountainside. So Mike was still fighting his alters by the time Zoey got there, and she already knew that Scott had knocked him out.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Yes, yes, yes! My favourite character gets her cameo! I'm super excited! I keep on putting more exclamation marks in every sentence! Yeah...I'll stop now.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, yeezynight14, Liz The Sweet Writer, PokemonFTW, OmniPlanckInstant, Bloodylilcorpse, Jonny Pickles (even though my protagonists hardly ever make it to the finale?) and the guest reviewer.**

It was quite nice, sharing a cabin with Zoey and Anne Maria. There was just one problem that night.

"So let me get this whole thing straight." Anne Maria said irritably. "Vito isn't even real? Mike's the real one?"

"Mike's the _original_ one." I corrected. "Please, Annie, _please_ don't pester Mike just so you can see Vito. He's desperate not to mess up his chance with Zoey." (By the way, she was totally fine with me calling her Annie – it was a lot easier, plus it meant our names rhymed).

Zoey was arranging the few things she'd managed to salvage from her old cabin, but at that moment, she turned and spoke. "Well, now that I know the truth, I'm not mad any more. As far as I'm concerned, I was right about Mike first time. He's a good guy."

Right on cue, there was a knock on the door. "Hey, Zoey?"

Zoey answered the door, and sure enough, Mike was right outside. "Hey." she greeted him. "I was just about to come over to your side and ask if we could talk."

Mike grinned. "That's why I came over here." And the two set off to the campfire pit.

"What do you bet they'll be looking for a place to make out?" I asked Anne Maria.

"Oh, more than that." she replied, smirking. "Think they might go to the mess hall and help each other do a lot more?"

I blushed, getting a very disturbing mental image of the couple. "No way!" I insisted. "Zoey's not the type to just jump into that kind of a relationship. And Mike's careful. Besides, even if one of them wanted to do it now, they'd respect the other not wanting to."

Anne Maria shrugged. "Red's loss, then. He may not be Vito, but the dude's got a hot bod. He's a great kisser already, and, y'know, I can tell that he's the complete package. If she had any sense, she'd make sure she got as much out of him as possible."

I raised my eyebrows. "So, does that mean you and Vito...?"

Anne Maria gave a sigh. "Nope. Wish we had, though. He'd probably be as good as any college kid already."

I paused, trying to work out if she was saying what I thought she was saying. Evidently, it was, since she laughed at me. "Oh wow, your face! What's the big deal, girl? I thought most cheerleaders were whores – only difference is we Jersey girls enjoy each other just as much as the boys."

I scowled. "Just cause I'm a cheerleader doesn't mean I sleep around! Only, like, one or two of them actually do it. A few of the others are about a second away from taking a vow of chastity. And I'm not doing it until I date someone." Then I paused. "So how long have you..."

"From the day before my sixteenth." Anne Maria said proudly. "Although I wasn't exactly a nun before that. And I don't care what anyone thinks about it. I mean, I'm legal, right? And it's not like I do anything with just anyone. My friends are all in college, and it's normal around there. I'm just lucky enough to be in their group."

I won't lie, I couldn't believe that I was hearing this. Although, now I thought about it, I shouldn't have been surprised that Anne Maria was that kind of girl. I guess I was really more surprised that she was telling me about it.

Well, I wasn't a homophobe or kinkphobe, so I wasn't going to judge.

"Wow."I finally said. "So let me guess...when you got home, Vito was going to be introduced to your group."

Anne Maria shrugged. "Maybe. If I didn't decide I wanted him all to myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cheat. Once someone gets my heart, I'll stick to them. What I do now is just fun."

Okay. Well, I was sort of interested now. "So...is a girl different to a guy?"

Anne Maria grinned slyly. "You wanna find out?"

I laughed nervously. "I was just curious, but no. I already know I'm straight."

"Your loss." Anne Maria shrugged. "Nah, it's not that different. Every guy's different, and every gal is too."

I was determined not to let this new knowledge make me think of Anne Maria differently. She was still one of my friends. Even so, when Zoey returned, face lightly flushed and eyes shining, we didn't go any further.

"Have fun?" I teased Zoey.

She blushed further. "We mostly talked." she said. "Really!"

I laughed. "Hey, don't blame me for thinking you were doing something else. Your other roommate thought you were doing a lot past what I'm pretty sure you've been doing."

Since Zoey's clothes were still neat but her hair was almost coming out of his bunches, it was pretty clear there had been something going on.

Zoey continued to blush, and I decided to show mercy. "Hey, it's nothing to be embarrassed about." I shrugged. "As long as you didn't jump Mike without consent, why shouldn't you do that?"

Zoey did laugh at that, although her cheeks were still bright pink. "You know," she remarked, "I don't think I could do that. Mike's a lot stronger than he looks."

What a fun night. The free day was fun, too. Well, the morning was. I chatted with Anne Maria and Zoey all morning. Now that Vito wasn't a problem any more, the two girls stopped resenting each other. Anne Maria got over it quickly since she had plenty of real Jersey dudes at home to flirt with, and Zoey was so happy that she didn't care any more. So we spent the morning playing dumb games and swapping other makeover tips. Anne Maria had another go at making both of us up, and this time, they actually looked good. "I figured you two can't copy my look," she said, "So I adjusted my makeup tips."

In the afternoon, Lightning called me out again to train. This time, he didn't let me off for the next five hours – and he only stopped then because we were called to the mess hall to have dinner (thank goodness I was pretty sure they wouldn't sedate us again).

And then the challenge came. We were woken by a zeppelin flying overhead. Well, Chris said it was a "mobile air commands centre", but it was basically a zeppelin. Hence, our challenge was going to be an aerial obstacle course. As in, we'd have to make our own flying machines to do it in.

"Lightning, taking to the skies!" Lightning exclaimed. "Sha- _bam_!" He would've accidentally punched me in the face if I hadn't seen his drawn-back fist and sidestepped. But he noticed. "Oh wow, that would've hurt! Sorry, Danni."

I shrugged and smiled. "It's okay, Lightning. I got out of the way in time."

Chris looked very uninterested. "Uh-huh. And here to demonstrate, put your hands together for Total Drama classic contender...Heather!"

I should've seen it coming. We'd had Lindsay. We'd had Gwen, and Courtney, and Duncan. Some of the most popular players on Total Drama! Why not bring Heather into the mix, too? She'd won a season, and made the final three twice.

But all that screentime didn't prepare me for seeing the real Heather. She shouldn't have looked anything special – just a slim pale girl, maybe a little taller than me – but her expression! I'd seen her scowl on the show, but seeing her look at me and the others like we were insects – nothing like that to make a girl feel like nothing.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. Heather was not only as mean as ever, but as pretty as ever. It had been a whole year since her head was shaved in the first season, and we'd seen her struggling through her bald phase and rocking hair extensions in a short ponytail. Now, her hair had fully grown and it was back to waist-length.

Zoey, who was holding hands with Mike (yeah, good luck finding either ot them without the other for more than ten minutes), was the first to speak up. "Wow! You're _the_ Heather?"

"Sorry," Heather replied in a superior tone, "I have this policy of not talking to losers."

I stepped up. "That's a little weird, isn't it? Don't you have an inner voice, Heather? I mean, you're as much a loser as any of us. You failed two seasons, and you know at least one of us is going to be a winner."

"Well, at least I've already won a season." Heather shot back.  
"You would've lost if Alejandro hadn't been crushing on you." I pointed out quickly. "You were just lucky that he couldn't stand to leave you hanging. So, is it true, Heather? You don't have an inner voice? Funny, I'm pretty sure you grew a conscience. Did it disappear when your hair grew back?"

Heather didn't reply properly to that. She just gave her signature sound of frustration and shot her signature death-glare at me. I could see why Alejandro referred to that look as "shooting daggers."

I turned and whispered to Zoey "You didn't take that seriously, right?" Zoey shook her head

Anyway, so...yeah, Heather had to demonstrate. Chris gave her his jet pack, and we watched as she flew through the hoops and ended up taking a nose dive to the ground.

"Um, this challenge seems kind of unsafe." Zoey ventured.

Chris grinned. "No. It's _totally_ unsafe!" He laughed and added "Did I forget to mention you'll be attacked by flying mutant fire-breathing goats?"

We all stared at him. "That's it, I'm out!" Zoey declared.

"Red's right!" Anne Maria said. "This ain't worth it!"

But then Chris reminded us about the million dollars. The girls agreed to the challenge, and I was glad. I mean, I may have wanted to win, but if two of the fiercest competitors dropped out now, that wasn't going to make my coming victory the best it could be. Not that I would've dropped out with them, but I'm sure they both knew that it was stupid to leave in the final five. We were all so close!

We had to go to the island dump to look for parts to our flying machine. Each of us had to pick a card and make whatever we got.

We went in alphabetical order, so Anne Maria chose first. She looked at her card and made a face. "A _bird_? Whaddaya expect me to do, shoot and pluck hundreds so I can look like I'm from an Easter card?"

I had more luck. "Wow! A rocket." Then I frowned. "Except I don't even know what I need to make one."

Lightning grinned at his card. "A helicopter? Sweet! Didn't think I'd get one til' I hit the majors."

Mike's turn. He looked at his card thoughtfully. "A hot air balloon? Well, at least it shouldn't be too hard to build..."

"Remember Cody and Sierra's one last season if you get stuck!" I called after him.

"Don't give him ideas, Danni!" Chris snapped at me. Zoey pulled out the last – and possibly safest – flying machine.

"A plane? Cool! And also totally impossible to build."

I had no time to feel sympathetic towards those who had a hard job. This part of the challenge was for reward, and I had to finish first if I wanted to get it. And it had to work.

Later on, I'd call the dump deux ex machina – that means "a god in a machine". Everyone found literally everything they needed. Zoey kept thinking out loud about what she needed, and every time she did, she caught sight of something that would work (or tripped over it, in the propeller's case). Lightning found a parachute and heat source easily enough, and left them there, so Mike didn't have too much trouble finding them. After that, Lightning wandered off and found a motorcycle (actually, I called him over about it, since I'd found a fan, and figured I needed one for my rocket.

Anne Maria wasn't having as much trouble as she had thought, but she was anxiously checking her nails as she made her wings.

As for me? Well, once I found my fan, I started making the shell of my rocket out of scrap metal. It looked sort of patchwork, but at least it worked. I even found some glass, which I turned into the top of my rocket, where my seat and the controls would be. I even left part of it open, using a piece of metal to slide up and down as a door so I wouldn't fall out, but I could have an open window (hey, I was going to stay below the clouds with this thing...although I hoped I could take it home after the season if it worked).

The engine and controls weren't as easy to connect, but I managed it in the end. At least I was lucky enough to FIND an engine. However, I was still the last to finish, and Mike had earned the reward – a smoke machine.

"Sweet!" he grinned, taking it.

Okay, so we were ready to take the obstacle course. And guess what? If Chris hadn't decided to watch from his zeppelin...or aerial commands centre, whatever floats your boat, or raises your rocket, I guess...it would've happened. But it didn't.

Before we could start, Chris, and then Chef, were suddenly pushed out of the zeppelin. It wasn't flying that high, so they survived. And I could hear Heather's voice, faint as it was.

"One Gemmie for you, and one million for me!" she called from the zeppelin, holding out the million dollars.

Chris gave a groan before I went up to him. "Um, Chris? You realize that Heather just stole your zeppelin, and I'm betting she'll take it home with her."

"Whatever." Chris shrugged. Yeah, he didn't actually care. "Got it at the airforce garage sale."

"And she stole my million!" Lightning added.

"Whatever." Chris said again. "Not my million bucks."

"And all your Gemmie awards." Zoey said. Now her voice wasn't sly, and her expression was totally serious, but she must have thought it through before she said that. Chris may not have cared about our money, or his own zeppelin, but he did care about his awards.

And the solution was pretty much expected. Chris cancelled the obstacle course and said whoever took the zeppelin down got immunity.

"Don't try to stop me!" Heather yelled from above. "I've got gold statuettes and I am not afraid to use them!" She threw two of Chris' Gemmies in our direction, and Chris ran to catch them. If I'd been watching this at home, I would've been on the floor by this time. As it was, I was pulling up the opening enough that I only had a window.

Oh yeah, I needed the window. Chris gave us eggs, apparently from the mutant goats (yeaaahhh...mammals, but mutated), and suggested we used those as ammo to throw at Heather. So I'd throw from the window. The goats wouldn't be able to break through the metal, and I could probably duck anything Heather threw at me by not sticking my head out of the window for too long.

As it was, the rocket was one of the better things to have. Mike's hot air balloon was far too slow, and while Anne Maria's wings could surprisingly fly, flapping tired her out easily and it didn't help her get close to the zeppelin without running into the flying mutant goats, who were NOT pleased that we had their eggs.

Zoey's plane was slower than my rocket and Lightning's helicopter, too, surprisingly. That's how Lightning and I both got into the zeppelin first. Well, Lightning crashed through the front window, and I jumped from my rocket through the hole to help him.

Heather had managed to duck the shattering glass. By the time I'd made it in, she was protectively holding the million dollars. "Yes, that million is mine!" Lightning said, eyes fixed on the suitcase. "All right, girl, hand it over!"

Heather began sobbing. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she began. "All I wanted was the money, but this has just gone too far! Here, just take it-"  
I cut her off, seeing what was coming. "She's faking it!" I yelled. "She's not crying. Don't take it, Lightning, she's going to hit you over the head with it any second!"

Lightning took an uncertain step away from the dark-haired diva, and I whispered in his ear "If you land the zeppelin, I'll keep distracting Heather and make sure she doesn't keep the suitcase."

Lightning obeyed, and I turned to face Heather, smiling pleasantly. "You know," I began, "I know I called you a loser on land, but we should forget that. Truth is, I'm in it to win it, just like you. But as a cheerleader, I know that to win something, like a place on the squad, you can't just play fair."

Heather eyed me warily. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you help me, I'll help you." I lied. "I know where the prize money from last season is. You know. Your money."

Heather scoffed at that. "The money was thrown into the volcano!"  
I shook my head. "Uh-uh. Ezekiel still has it. He's been hiding in the mines...well, actually, we kinda sealed him in a few episodes ago. Thing is, if you don't find it in half an hour, you're probably going to die. Or mutate, or something, Chris wasn't clear about it."

Well, Heather didn't believe that, either, but at least I was keeping her talking. And as long as she was watching me, she wasn't watching where the zeppelin was going. Lightning landed it in the water, but that was enough.

As he landed, I said quickly to Heather "Well-it's-been-nice-distracting-you-but-gotta-run-and-thanks-for-letting-me-grab-the-suitcase-from-you!" That was as I managed to flip myself up to a surface above Heather, hang upside down and grab the case from her hand while she was unprepared.

Because Lightning landed it, he got immunity. But we discussed who to vote off that night, and although he took some convincing, he agreed.

I was a little bit worried at the campfire ceremony. I knew Mike and Zoey would vote together, and if Anne Maria voted with them, we would be lost. But I just had to hope.

And Chris didn't disappoint. The person going home, with a 4-1 vote, was...

Anne Maria. Yep, we'd all voted for her.

She didn't seem too bothered, just a little annoyed. "Whatever." she said. "Who needs this stupid show anyway? I'm through with these challenges trying to ruin my looks, anyway!"

I smiled at her. "Bye, Annie. Can we still be friends?"

Anne Maria paused, watching me...and then she smiled. "Sure, Danni. But you gotta give me a cut if you win!"

"You've got a deal!" I called back, laughing.

The final four was upon us, and in my opinion, I might have made a mistake. It might have been a friendly competition, but all of us knew that it was going to be a two on two battle from now on. Me and Lightning vs Mike and Zoey.

Oh well, we could crush them.

 **Yeah, Danni knows nothing about Zoey's crazy skills. And she's underestimating Mike...and Svetlana, of course.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Our last TD cameo is here! Awww...I miss seeing them all. Oh well, we've got another season after this one, so we haven't seen the last of the classic competitors! Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Liz The Sweet Writer, OmniPlanckInstant, Pokemon FTW, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse, SuperKitty4789 and Thunderstrike16.**

The free day was tense. Lightning got me up for training at the crack of dawn, but he let me go after four hours, since he claimed I was faster than before. That was a relief.

I spent some time after lunch talking to Zoey, and I told her what I was feeling. "It's like two against two now." I confessed. "I don't think Lightning will vote me off and I don't want to vote him off, and I'm absolutely sure that you and Mike want to go to the finale together."  
"That's true." Zoey said uneasily. "So are you saying there will be no hard feelings against any of us if one of us gets voted off?"

"For me, yeah." I said. "I'll know why if you two vote me off. And I'm sure you'll be OK if Lightning and I vote you off. But I don't know about the boys. Lightning will probably be pretty mad."

"I'm sure Mike will be fine with it." Zoey said confidently. "He's pretty chill, and he told me he doesn't really expect to win. He would definitely love the million, but he came here to prove he could live like any other teen. And I didn't come to win, either – I wanted to meet other teens that were into the same things as me. Indie theatre, retro clothes, stuff like that."

I gave a sigh. "I must have been a _total_ disappointment to you, then. I consider you to be a friend, and I'm not into anything indie or retro."

Zoey giggled. "I didn't mean I wouldn't accept a friend who _wasn't_ into those things. I came here to make friends, too." She gave her own sigh. "I wish we didn't have to vote each other off, though. That won't make things easy for our friendship."

"Hey," I smiled at her, "If we think our friendship can survive, it will. And I will be _very_ disappointed if you don't try hard to win the next challenge. If nothing else, you'll either win immunity so I'll have to vote for Mike, or make it clear that you're a major threat who was unlucky and so I'll vote you out so you don't have the chance to get any further!"

Zoey laughed again.

The evening was spent quietly. Mike and Zoey were together in the boys' cabin, so I was lounging in my cabin, reading. That's when I heard a knock on the door.

"Come in!" I called. Imagine my surprise when Lightning came in.

"You mind me visiting the girls' cabin, cutie? I mean, you didn't mind sharing it with that one guy."

I shrugged. I'd almost forgotten that Lightning didn't know Jo was a girl. "Oh, Jo was fine. I'm pretty sure he or she was transgender anyway – I mean, yeah, she acted like a guy, but she talked like a girl, so I think she was sort of both." (No, I didn't actually think that, but it was my way of telling Lightning he was wrong.) "But I'm fine with your visiting, as long as you actually sleep on your side. I would probably be OK with you staying in here, but you're going to take up Zoey's bunk."

Lightning nodded, and climbed up to my bunk to sit next to me. "Soooo..." he said, "Was there something you wanted to say today?"

I knew I was blushing. Did he know? How? Had Scott told him and he'd just forgotten until now?

I answered hastily. "Ummm...I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean?"

Lightning looked a little surprised, and sort of disappointed. "Well...Lightning kind of heard something about me and you, but...okay, we can talk about it another time. Cool?"

"Like maybe after the competition's over?" I suggested.

We shook on it, and Lightning left.

The next day, I wanted to discuss with Lightning who to vote off, but he was busy playing basketball. Okay, so he kept answering with a "yeah" whenever I spoke, but considering he said it to the idea of voting off Mike _and_ voting off Zoey, I was pretty sure he wasn't listening, so I gave up in the end.

Even worse, Zoey and Mike had disappeared. I suspected that they might be discussing strategy – look, I know they were a couple by this time, but they were usually cuddling by the campfire pit or in one of their cabins, and I checked both places. They were definitely somewhere that they didn't want to be found, and that meant they were definitely discussing whether they tossed me or Lightning first.

Well, if I didn't get a chance to discuss votes with Lightning and we had the poster couple for generic chick flick (don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the alternative chick and the mentally unusual boy, and I love chick flicks, the more generic the cuter) voting against one of us, I would just have to find a way to win immunity. At all costs.

Chris told us that he'd thought about giving us a break. "Then I thought," he continued, " _Who's thinking this? Did one of the lawyers take control of my brain?!_ So instead," he grinned, "I thought I'd take the break. Chef made up some challenges that got the red light from the producers. And the light just turned green! See you suckers tomorrow...if you survive, that is."

"I'll bring the pain!" Chef declared, laughing manically.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. He left us in the hands of the guy who put twelve teens through boot camp (Gwen was the only one who didn't drop out in the end) and left four teenagers in the woods to find their way back while he stole and used all their personal stuff (The girls ended up winning that because girls rule). Well, I could take boot camp or orienteering.

What I couldn't believe I was doing, was cooking something for a classic competitor. Guess who?  
I took one look at the blindfolded, bound up contestant, and gave a squeal. "Omigosh, DJ!" I exclaimed. One of my favourite contestants – one of the sweetest guys you could ever meet.

The blindfold was removed from DJ's eyes, and he looked around fearfully. "No! Not here!" he exclaimed fearfully. "I vowed never to be back as long as there was breath in my lungs!"

Chef told us to make some kind of lunch with whatever we could find within twenty minutes. Then DJ would judge.

So what did I do? Start out in Chef's kitchen. Hey, he wasn't guarding it, so I assumed there had to be _some_ decent stuff in there.  
And you know what? There was! I found a ziplock bag with some potatoes in it, so I peeled them, left the potatoes out and took the peelings, and also found a block of cheddar. So I took that with the bag, too, then ran back to my cooking station.

Once I'd scrubbed the peelings, I found a knife, so I started cutting fine slices of cheese before heating them up. I fried the potato peelings until they were crispy, added the now-melted cheese, and got it done in nineteen minutes.

On one side of me, Lightning's frying pan was on fire, and on the other, Zoey was battling vines that were attacking from her salad. Further over, Mike seemed to actually be doing all right.

"Three, two, one!" Chef called. "Spatulas down! Well? Dish it up, cupcakes! Move, move, move!"

I was up first. "I made cheesy crispy potato peelings!" I said, smiling hopefully at DJ. He smiled back and I put my plate down, letting Lightning go up.

"I went with an Italian theme," he said, "ginormous maggot calleloni in a cream sauce." His dish suddenly reared up. Lightning hit it on the head. "What did I tell you? Stay down!"

Mike looked more confident than most of us. "I had to work with what I had, but I managed to make a fruit pie." he said.

"Um, got a question." I volunteered. "Where did you get actual fruit on this island?"

"Well...they're on the wrong bushes because of the mutation thing on the island, but there's actually quite a few dotted around." Mike explained. And if I was correct, it wasn't Mike who had found them – he'd just utilized Manitoba Smith's survival skills for the challenge.

Zoey had made a salad, but it had bugs in it and it made DJ shudder.

It was pretty obvious who was going to win. Well, it would have been if we had the right judge. DJ actually ended up freaking out when he was supposed to eat the maggot, which was first, so he broke free of the bonds and ran screaming.

So what happened? Chef made us eat our own food. That's why I got to have the first decent food I'd had in weeks, while Zoey had to choke down living plants and Lightning had to treat a maggot like pasta. Of course, Mike was happy with his pie, but...

"Finished!" I called out before anyone else. My meal not only tasted okay, but it was also the smallest. So obviously I was going to finish first!

"Challenge is over!" Chef announced. "Danni wins!"

Lightning, although he looked weak from trying to eat his disgusting maggot, managed to sprint over and high-five me. "Lightning and Danni, going all the way to the finals!"

Well, I got an advantage. Our challenge was basically a race to a flagpole. The thing was, Chef would be hunting us with his spaghetti bazooka, which shot literally burning spaghetti at us.

My advantage was that Chef couldn't track me. Everyone else had to wear a tracking collar, while I just had to run to the flag and tag it first.

Yeah, so I won. I was obviously going to win. Everyone made it, though. Lightning was first after me. Then Zoey and Mike turned up together, both with spaghetti stains. Zoey was crying, which shocked me. Zoey may have seemed feather-soft, but I knew her well. She had a tough streak. It just wasn't obvious because of her sweet cheerful personality. Nevertheless, I'd never seen her cry.

During the afternoon, Mike tried to get her to tell him what was wrong, but as he told me later on, she wouldn't say.

"Try to get it out of her." he whispered to me. "Whatever it's about, it's not good for her to keep this covered up."

I waited for Zoey to calm down before I said anything. Then I said gently "Wanna talk about it?"

Zoey shook her head firmly. "No."

"But you're my friend." I pressed. "If something's wrong, I want to know, so I can help."

"No one can help." Zoey said the words so softly that I don't think she meant them to be heard, but I heard them anyway.

"Look, if something's that wrong, you need to let it out." I told her seriously. "I can keep it a secret. Remember how much it hurt Mike to keep his disorder from you? If you keep this in, it's going to hurt just as much."

Zoey just looked at me for a few moments. Then she took a deep breath and said "All right, I'll tell you. You're probably going to vote me off anyway, so I might as well admit what happened." She took another breath and mumbled the words. "I've been cautioned for assualt. That's not the secret." she added hastily. "It's that...well, you know how I was completely fine with Mike being someone else part of the time?"

I nodded.

"It's because..." Zoey began. "Well...because I'm not always myself. It's not often, but if I'm pushed too far, I...I lose control over myself. It's like there's someone else doing all these things. And...and it nearly happened today. If Mike hadn't been there for me..." She shuddered. "After Chef shot me, I was breaking. I could feel my control slipping away. Who knows what I would've done to Chef if I was on my own? Or you or Lightning?"

It was a lot to take in. Zoey had anger issues? Is that what she was saying?

"Can I ask..." I began hesitantly. "What have you done before?"

Zoey gave a sigh. "I'll tell you. One of the football jocks at my school was trying to ask me out. I'd had a majorly bad day already, and I tried to tell him nicely to leave me alone. But he wouldn't. And half his friends started ganging up on me, trying to make me say yes, and I was completely surrounded. I couldn't take the pressure, and...well...I gave the entire football team broken noses."

I couldn't help letting a gasp escape. I couldn't imagine sweet, kind little Zoey breaking the noses of a whole team of boys. I imagined them to be big strong guys that all looked sort of like Lightning.

But even with this new information, I couldn't dislike my friend. After all, like she said, that scary breaking-point person wasn't the real her.

"I don't hate you." I said finally. "What you just described is very similar to having DID. And I don't hate Mike, so how could I hate you? If you go home tonight – and I haven't decided yet – it's nothing personal."

Before I discussed voting, I tried to cheer Zoey up by having some fun with cheerleading moves. I would've taught her how to cartwheel and flip first...but she proved she could do most of that. She had mad gymnastic skills. Really, I'd never seen anyone on my squad be as good as Zoey.  
"Are you on a cheerleading squad or a gymnastics team at school?" I asked. Zoey flushed and shook her head.

"Well, you've got to join one now!" I told her. "With your skills, they can't say no to you!"

Zoey blushed even more, but she smiled. I encouraged her to tell Mike what she'd told me, while I went to discuss voting with Lightning.

The two of us just couldn't agree. After that gymnastics display Zoey had shown, I wanted her off the show straightaway. Lightning, though? He wanted Mike out. We couldn't agree. After a few minutes of arguing, Lightning just snapped "Sha-fine!" and stormed out.

That is the only reason I voted for Mike. I decided to go along with Lightning, if only for safety in numbers.

Chef gave us marshmallows as usual. "One of you is going home, except for Danni, who has immunity. Now the votes. Let's see, we've got one vote for Lightning...one for Mike...another for Lightning...and the final vote goes to..."

I waited, confident that there would be a tiebreaker coming up any minute now.

"...Zoey!"

Lightning and I exchanged glances. "Lightning decided to vote with you in the end!" he said in a whisper,

"And I decided to vote with you!" I exclaimed. "And that meant...we split the votes!" I couldn't believe it. Through one stupid mistake, my only ally was gone. Luckily, Chris came back to hurl Lightning, and so I had enough time while he and Chef were talking to say what I wanted to say.

"I'm really really sorry." I told him. "You know that thing you wanted to talk about yesterday? Do you...do you still wanna talk about it after the show?"

There was a pause. Then a grin spread over Lightning's face. "Get out there and win, cutie." he said. "'Long as you don't get sent home next, we'll talk." And at that moment, we were definitely thinking in sync. I stood on my tiptoes to reach above the catapult. Lightning lowered his head down to reach me.

And we kissed. Only for a second, because Chris hurled Lightning before we were done, but it was still a kiss. We both knew what we were going to say next time we met.

 **Yeah, I know, choppy. Not much challenge in there at all. Anyway, since I couldn't think of a way to bring out Commando Zoey with Mike still around, I instead had that revelation. Many people see Commando Zoey as sort of what Mal would be if he was Zoey's alter ego, although obviously CZ came first. I thought it would be cool to make it clear that Zoey was close to losing it, and it was only Mike's support that kept her sane. That's why we also see her skills here. Zoey may seem broken now, but this support will give her more confidence later on, which will serve her well in the next story. But for now, see ya later!**

 **Oh, and another thing. I know a lot of you were expecting Lightning vs Danni to be the final two. PSYCHE! Haha, sorry, had to do that.**


	14. Chapter 14

**The final three. Who you gonna root for, who's it gonna be? Is it Zoey, Mike the last guy, or will you pick Danni? (Sorry, no one left has four syllables to their name, so had to point out that Mike was the one guy left).**

 **Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, Pokemon FTW, Liz The Sweet Writer, yeezynight14, Nicky Haugh, RebelToasters12, Thunderstrike16, OmniPlanckInstant, Bloodylilcorpse, Jonny Pickles and the guest reviewer (yes).**

I didn't really want to talk to the other two members of the final three during the free day. But just because Zoey and Mike were closer than Gwen and Trent had ever been, had more in common than Heather and Alejandro, and had less heartbreak than Tyler and Lindsay, it didn't mean that they didn't consider me a friend, and although we all knew that they wanted to take each other to the final two, they had no problem with hanging out with me. So they didn't go off by themselves for half the day, leaving me alone. Instead, they kept trying to draw me into conversation, wanting to play dumb yet fun games, discussing what we'd do with the money, comparing our physical skills.

The highlight of the day? Finding out that Zoey, however good at gymnastics she was, could only get halfway through a cartwheel before falling over. Mike couldn't do one, either, but Svetlana came out after Zoey had failed several times and said "Vy are you still failing at zis? It is being so easy!" Then she turned about twenty in a row. Even I couldn't do that!  
I didn't attempt to teach Zoey how to do a cartwheel, though. I just couldn't be bothered.

But surprisingly, I woke up the next morning feeling a lot more energetic, and for some reason, less bothered. Yes, Zoey and Mike would be tough to beat. But I came here to...have fun! Yeah, have fun. What did it matter if I didn't make the final two?

Two inner voices were battling. Half of me was saying " _This game wasn't something to take seriously! I came here for fun...and cause Ronan made me. And we've had fun!"_

The other voice was saying " _But winning does matter! I'm so close, why should I give up now?"_

Then, one more voice spoke, drowning the other out. " _Lightning said we could follow up on that kiss, as long as I wasn't the next one to leave. I mean, he might've been joking, but what if he wasn't? That means I HAVE to win immunity – otherwise, one of those two will vote me off for sure!"_

That decided it. I didn't need to win the million necessarily, but I needed to be in the final two. Like I'd said before, I really wanted a boyfriend, and although I was pretty sure Lightning would like me whether I made the final two or not, I wasn't willing to find out. I knew for a fact that whatever happened, he liked me and I liked him. But winning was important to him. And if just one more challenge clinched the deal, I was willing to do anything to win it.

Because I was feeling better, I actually voluntarily joined the lovebirds at breakfast. "It's the semifinals." I said thoughtfully. "Do you remember the last few semifinals? It might give us some idea of what Chris is planning this season."

Mike paused, thinking. Then he shrugged. "I didn't watch the show regularly. I think I missed at least two of the semifinals. I can't even remember watching the finales, apart from the last one."

"I've seen every season, though." Zoey chipped in. "I mean, I only got the first five episodes online, because I only started watching from the middle of that episode where they had to set up camp in the woods. So we had...the Triple Dog Dare challenge..."

"The animal-buddy movie challenge that included walking through the forest back to the lot..." I added.

"And the race to Hawaii?" Mike said in a this-is-not-a-statement-so-confirm-it-please voice. Zoey and I nodded, smiling.

"Any similarities there, though?" I mused. "The thing is, the would-be-finale of the second season is more like the first semifinal challenge, because both involved the other campers. And the race to Hawaii was just a way to get the remaining three to the finale location since the plane had been blown up."

"Well, this season has been a bit weirder than most of the others." Mike admitted. "At least, I think it has. Maybe it's just because this is my first time as a contestant."

I shook my head. "Don't think so. I think the toxic waste made it a whole lot weirder. Last time the campers were here, they didn't have to cook for their eating contest – they just ate Chef's slop and served Chris with their own. They did stuff like dodgeball and bike races, and didn't have any forced difficulties, not obstacle courses with vision-impairing glasses. And they didn't have to deal with as many explosions as we have!" I gave a sigh. "Forget it. I have no idea what Chris is planning for today's challenge."

But as it was, luck was sort of on my side. The reason for that was...well, if any of us wanted to be in with a good chance to win this challenge, we'd have to start out as a team.

Okay, what happened, was that we had to go to a part of the island that was a mutant forest (sinkholes full of toxic waste popped up everywhere)

Chris told us about this giant Venus flytrap creature Chris called Larry. It/he had this large flower with it. The challenge was to find Larry (who, by the way, might eat us if we didn't get away quickly enough), grab the flower, and whoever got it past the finish line won. Finally, each of us got a third of the map. And that was the moment I knew what to do (well, and Chris specifically gave us permission to do it).

"Listen, you two." I said to Mike and Zoey. "I've got an idea. Why don't we work together for the first part of the challenge? We all find Larry as a team. Then we've got the whole map. I'm betting getting the flower might need all of us, too. Once we've got the flower, no hard feelings. Whoever wins, wins."

Zoey looked at me carefully. She smiled. "I'm fine with that. Mike?"

"If you're in, so am I." Mike agreed with her. We all held out our map pieces, and started with Zoey's (I had the middle piece, and Mike had the last).

Because we were working as a team, we found Larry pretty much without serious incident. If any of us almost hit a sinkhole or got attacked by a mutant, the other two would instantly perform a rescue. All of us had to be saved at least once, but the threats were mostly only mild.

"Look at that!" I whispered, my eyes fixed on the flower. "How are we meant to grab that without that thing devouring whoever goes in?"

"I have an idea." Zoey spoke up. "But...I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like my part in it." After she'd explained it, we knew the reason.

Zoey's idea was that one of us had a vine tied around them, and got lowered down to grab the flower by the other two of us, then was pulled back up before Larry could snap his jaws around them (yeah, I'm going to call it a 'him' since it has a masculine name). And Zoey was the smallest. I mean, Mike was thinner than me or Zoey, but he was also the tallest, and although it didn't show much, he had a lot of muscle. I was slender rather than thin, and my muscle was pretty strong. My curves were only just visible, and I was about the average height of a girl my age (shorter than most guys the same age, but not by much). Zoey was more curvy than me, but she was also shorter, with less muscle (oh, it was there, but there wasn't as much). Plus, she was just, in general, smaller – not exactly petite, but smaller than the average sixteen-year-old. She definitely bore the least weight, so it was pretty obvious that she'd have to be the one lowered down.

Mike and I exchanged glances as all these thoughts passed through my head. Zoey paused, watching us, then forced a smile bravely. "I'll do it." she said, her voice a little shaky, but firm. "I know I can trust both of you not to let go."

"Even accidentally?" I tried to joke.

"Even then." Zoey managed another smile, slightly less forced.

And when we did the idea, we discovered Zoey's faith in us was justified, because we didn't let go of the vine for a second. Neither of us – not once.

That worked. Then there was one last problem. Well, two. First of all, Larry uprooted himself and started chasing us. Second, it was winner-takes-all, and Zoey had the flower. If I wanted any chance at winning, I had to get it.

Well, there was one problem solved. Larry would go for whoever had the flower, so Zoey and Mike kept throwing it to each other. All I had to do was play Piggy In The Middle, and grab it towards the end.

I didn't try to get it at all while running for the finish, until it was in view. It was not an easy thing to do, but I held back on the instincts telling me to get the flower. Then, as Zoey threw it again, a throw that would usually sail just over my head and into Mike's outstretched hand, I reached up, and...

Snagged it! Finally, I dove across the finish line and gave it to Chris, who gave it back to Larry.

"Danni for the win!" Chris announced.

I turned to my opponents, smiling. "Sorry, guys, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Better that I win than Scott or Jo, at least, right?"

Zoey and Mike exchanged glances. I knew what they were thinking.

"I guess I'll leave you alone for the moment." I said finally. "I'm sorry, but it's a game. Someone has to go. And look on the bright side – you don't have to fight each other. Remember what happened when Trent and Gwen had to fight it out on opposite teams?"

I spent the time before elimination in my cabin, thinking over who I really wanted to face. Zoey was the one I was closer to. We'd been friends almost since the start of camp, despite being on different teams. We'd exchanged girl talk and shared our dreams and our reasons for being here. Zoey knew my worst moments, and I knew about her breaking-point issues. How could I ever choose someone else to take to the finale?

But Mike was another story. I didn't know him as well as Zoey did, or as well as I knew her, but I knew enough to know that it would be no easier or harder on myself if I took him to the finale with me. Mike, despite his alternate personalities, was a wonderful person with a kind heart and one perfect personality...even if it wasn't always the one on show. But then again, if I took Mike, who knew what I'd be up against? If it was a major physical challenge, I didn't stand a chance, because Svetlana would no doubt be able to crush me. Could I take that risk?

So at that night, on the dock, Chris asked me that fateful question. "Who will get the Hurl Of Shame?"

I looked at Mike and Zoey, who were standing before me with hands clasped. Neither of them looked ready to let go of each other any time soon. I offered them a sympathetic smile. "Sorry. It was a hard decision. I didn't really want to pick either of you. But in the end, I decided...Mike, I want you to go with the finale with me. And I'm really really sorry, Zoey, but that means you'll have to leave."

Zoey gave a sigh. Mike looked downcast. Then, the redhead hugged him hard, and whispered something to him before going on to me.

"Bye, Danni." she whispered. "Obviously, I have to root for Mike, but I just want you to know I don't blame you for hurling me – I mean, you had to hurl someone. Just...don't be a walkover, okay?"

I laughed and hugged her back. "All I ask is that even if I win, we'll still be friends."

"Deal. I'll be watching at the finale."

And that was the end of that day.

 **I know. Again, not much challenge. Not much of anything. But it was necessary. It wasn't much of a challenge, anyway, just dull.**


	15. Chapter 15

**_Danni, please head straight, that's it, you're doing great, search through that wood_...wait, wasn't that last season? And sung to the helpers? Sorry about that, but it's finale time!**

 **Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, OmniPlanckInstant, RebelToasters12, Nicky Haugh, That British Guy (you should've told me before I announced the final two – nice one man!) Pokemon FTW, Bloodylilcorpse and yeezynight14.**

There wouldn't be a break between today and the finale, but I tried to squeeze in some fun. I started singing as Mike and I walked back to the cabins.

" _My ladies, please head straight, that's it, you're doing great!"_ I trilled. " _Search through that wood, toit de suite,_

 _Find me some giant feet!"_

There was a pause. I nudged Mike. "Come on! You watched the World Tour finale! Join in, come on!"

"I really don't feel like it." Mike mumbled.

I continued singing. " _Come on guys, move it fast, quick, quick, I won't be last!  
Grab logs to match his frame, all overbuilt and lame!_

 _I'm gonna win it, and you can't take it,_

 _I'm right here in it, and you just fake it!"_

I paused again, and looked at Mike. "You do know the song, right? If not, we could just do a different duet. Come on, Mike, I know your girlfriend's gone, but I had to take someone out, and you could always split the money with her if you win."

"I know," Mike said, starting to sound frustrated, "I just don't-" Then he froze up, and I realized he was switching. His voice changed to that of Chester, the old man. "Dangnabbit, stop pestering me! In my day, little girls weren't seen _or_ heard!"

I stepped away. "Okay, okay, Chester. I get your point. But I'm sixteen – we don't consider that a little-girl age any more. Can I talk to Mike again? I promise I won't frustrate him any more!"

It turned out that this time, Chester let me actually get back through, and once I apologized for being so cheerful when Mike was already missing Zoey (yeah, two minutes apart), he was agreeable, and so we just said good night and went into the side of our respective cabin.

I didn't sleep well, that night. I was usually a heavy sleeper, but the personalities wouldn't shut up the whole night. Obviously, there was a wall between us, but it wasn't in the least bit soundproof. I'm sure Mike himself was asleep, but I kept hearing at least five different voices that night. I could swear I even heard a sixth voice mumbling something about being caged up, but I might have dreamed that, since I didn't think Mike's vocal chords could even handle a voice that deep and demonic.

I must've fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up. Mike was still mumbling away to himself in Svetlana's voice, so I assumed he was still asleep. Once I was dressed and ready for the day, I went to the confessional.

"I remember how Gwen and Owen did this huge thing about what they wanted to be remembered for and how they liked or didn't like the camp and the people?" I said to the camera. "For me...huh. I expected Total Drama to be tough. It's my twenty-fourth day here – the last day. By the end of today, I'll be home. The question is, will I have a million dollars with me? Anyway...yeah. I hated the challenges, mostly. The obstacle course was OK, and it was a cinch to get to that pole without Chef tracking me. As for the people? Well...you know, mixed. I hope today is the last day I'll see Scott, and I'm none too keen on seeing Staci or Dakota again, and Jo can blow Sasquachanakwa for all I care, but I liked most of the others." I smiled. "I can't wait to see Dawn and B again. I hope B knows I didn't vote for him..." Yeah, I hadn't been able to do it. I'd voted Sam with Lightning because I didn't buy most of what Scott was saying.

I paused, thinking. Then I added "I wonder if Lightning will still like me if I don't win the mil? I hope so. I think he will. Maybe." Then I smiled. "And one more thing. Mike, if you're seeing this confessional, I just want you to know that I don't care what the challenge is. Whether it's something you're awesome at or something I suck at, I'm not going to do anything unfair. I won't tease you or try to distract you...unless you do it to me. Let's have a fair finale. See you on the battlefield!" I hesitated, then added "I guess you'll see this confessional when it airs. You'll know I told the truth by then."

Chris arrived ready for the challenge dressed in Roman attire, and an intern pulled up a screen for us. "As a reward for making it to the finale," Chris said, "You each get thirty seconds to speak with a loved one back home!"

And then my bro flashed up onto the screen. "I never thought you'd make it to the end, Danni!" he grinned. "Guess you have more fight than I thought."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ronan." I scowled back. "Thought this was meant to be a reward."

"Hey, you wouldn't listen to me about reality shows!" Ronan defended himself. "What was I supposed to think – that you'd make it past the merge?"

I laughed. "You'll just have to watch it all with me when I get home. Made some awesome friends here. Hey, while you're here – Mike, come say hi to my brother Ronan."

Mike managed a gap-tooth smile at the screen, but didn't say anything.

"He's your competition?" Ronan laughed. "Bro, as long as you don't kill my little sis, I'm gonna just be waiting to see you crush her!"

I folded my arms and scowled, making him laugh more. "Bye, Ronan." I said pointedly. "If you're not going to wish me luck, I don't want the last five seconds."

"No, no, good luck." Ronan said quickly. "Really, sis. See you tonight!"

And then it was Mike's turn. I was shocked. I'd expected Mike to be an only child, but no. His little sister was the one on the screen. She had the same tan skin and dark hair, but it was neat and tied into cute little bunches. She looked about eight years old.

"Mike!" she squealed. "You're gonna win! I can't wait to see you come home!"

"Hey, Ally!" Mike said, his voice absolutely full of affection. He gave a sigh. "Boy, I wish I could hug you right now. You're my good luck charm, you know that?"

"I'll be sending you all the good luck you from right here." his sister said. "I don't care who you're up against. You're the best big brother in the world, and I know you can beat whoever you're fighting!"

"Can I say hi?" I mouthed at Mike.

He shrugged and beckoned me over. "This is my opponent, Danni." He told his sister.

"Hi!" I waved. "Don't worry, whether I lose or win, you'll get your bro back in one piece."

"You better, or you die!" the little girl brandished a fist, and I grinned back at her.

"Love you, Ally." Mike told his little sister, finally. "I'll see you soon, promise."

"Love you too!"

And that was it for the video. Chris was scowling. "I wish I'd just gone with choosing an adult." he groaned. "That one was way too mushy."

I laughed. "You think Mike learned to believe in himself around people who _didn't_ believe in him? Boy, you must've really forgotten what it's like to be a teenager."

Chris had set up a little place that was supposed to rip off the Colesseum. Yes, you read that right. Mike and I were expected to act like gladiators. Well, we didn't have to kill each other. We just had to pin each other for an amount of time.

Then, Chris reintroduced us to the ex-campers – our former competition. A few of them called out encouragement.

"You can do it, Mike!" Zoey called out encouragingly.

"You show him, cutie!" Lightning yelled out.

"Don't you dare let her win!" Jo shouted.

B caught my eye, and gave me a smile and a look that said " _You are going to nail this."_ (Lucky for me, he seemed to trust that I hadn't voted him out...well, Dawn knew, so maybe she told him).

"Hey, Chris, why do I have to cheer for my teammate?" Scott demanded. "I mean, she basically called me a thief and a liar in front of everyone and almost got me voted off."

"Um, you stole everyone's stuff and tried to frame Dawn, remember?" I argued back. "I'm not saying you have to cheer for me, but you've got to admit it – I was right. You told all kinds of lies about B as well, and I know at least half of the things you said to Zoey were made up."

"Well, I'm not cheering for Five-In-One or Cheer Chick." Jo said, arms folded.

"Oh, I think you will cheer." Chris said calmly. He had an extra space for Fang, who would be let loose on everyone if they didn't cheer enough. "Any questions?"

"Go Mike." Jo said flatly.

I already explained that our challenge was a gladiator battle. But before that, Chris (okay, Chef in a plane) dumped a literal tonne of junk between us. We could use whatever we found to make both weapons and armour, as long as it was within fifteen minutes (and we just had to hope we didn't hit any booby traps).

That was the easy part. The others were all yelling encouragement and telling us what to look for.

Me? I found a helmet in the junk and put that on, and then I found a metal surface with spikes sticking out of it, which I used some rope to tie around myself. I needed to keep my arms and legs free and weightless, though. My acrobatic skills would be the one thing that I could use to my advantage. I just had to hope the challenge wouldn't unleash Svetlana.

I needed a weapon, of course. Acrobatics were for dodging Mike's attacks, but I needed to be able to fight back. I eventually found a sharp stick, which I decided would have to do. I could always use it to pole-vault if it came to that.

The problem was not really the gladiator fight, just me facing off against Mike. No, it was the twist. Every so often, Chris set multiple mutants on us.

I don't remember that much about fighting Mike, to be honest. It was the mutants I remembered. First came the fire-breathing beetle – the one that Dawn found the baby of.

But it wasn't in the mood to be persuaded now. I was just lucky I was able to somersault out of the path of its flame in time.

The problem was not really the mutants, actually. The problem was that while trying to pin each other, Mike and I had to keep fighting them off because none of them would go away. We had the giant turtle, the alligator with tentacles, some mutant gophers, Larry, the tree that tried to suffocate me, and Ezekiel.

It was only lucky that Zeke didn't pay too much attention to us. He spotted Anne Maria in the peanut gallery, and didn't take much interest in us, but the others all ran amok. Some went for us, but others went for the peanut gallery.

You know who's really awesome? Cameron.

Yeah, I just said the name of that little shrimp who was voted off second. Mike and I tried to concentrate on getting all the mutants out of the ring and off the peanut gallery before we actually got on to fighting each other, but it was Cameron who actually knew what to do. "Find their weak spots!" he called out. "If you hit that, they will most likely retreat!"

This was, of course, easier said than done, but not only did Cameron know what to focus on, but also how to get to that point. He probably couldn't have done it by himself, but he knew all the moves and how to use them effectively, and it worked!

I made a mental note to save ten grand for the little guy. For now, I just called out "You're a superstar, Cam!"

So, who won?

Okay, before taking a guess, just imagine it. Me, standing in the ring, facing Mike. We're both holding weapons, arms raised. I have one eye on the peanut gallery, but Mike is standing with his back to them. We both really want to win. Slow motion, watch us running towards each other, and...

Then you see it. I mistime my jump away from Mike. He knocks me to the ground, and jumps down, keeping the toe of his shoes on my ankles and his palms strong on my wrists.

"One..." calls the peanut gallery. "Two...three!" And then the cheers break out, and it was all over.

"He has done it!" Chris announced. "Mike has done it! Mike wins Total Drama Revenge of The Island, and the million dollar prize!"

Mike, his grin almost literally from ear-to-ear, helped me up just as our ex-competitors came to congratulate him.

Lightning was the only one that didn't even look at Mike. Some of my friends sent me sympathetic smiles, but they all congratulated Mike. Lightning didn't bother to look there. He made eye contact with me.

"Do you think I'm a loser?" I said finally. "Because I didn't win?"

Lightning hesitated. My heart almost stopped. Then he grinned. "Get over here, girl!"

For all of two seconds I hesitated, too. Then I ran up to him. He swept me off my feet for a moment, then we finished that kiss we'd begun on the dock. "You made it to the finals." he said. "That's winner enough for the Lightning. And..." he grinned, "Next time you do anything like this, I'll make sure you're trained well enough so that there's no way you'll lose!"

"So..." I paused. "Does that mean I'm your girlfriend now?"

Lightning laughed at me this time. "You wanna be?"

"Uh..." I said jokingly. Then I used one of Lightning's own speech quirks. "If you'll take me, I'll say that I am totally your sha-girlfriend!"

Lightning laughed again. "You wanna use that kinda phrase, you gotta pay next time. We're a couple, no doubt. Sha-sweet!"

Before we left the island, I made one last confessional. "Well, so I didn't win. So what? Mike came on this show of his own choice. Ronan _made_ me audition for it. And just cause I'm going home without any money, it doesn't mean I'm going home with nothing. I have lots of awesome new friends, the boyfriend I've always wanted, and..." I began to sing the theme song, with a slight change. " _I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be famous!"_

Before I arrived home, I exchanged addresses and cell numbers with Zoey, Dawn, B, Anne Maria, Brick, and of course, Lightning. I also resolved to look up the others on Facebook.

But now, I was finally going home.

 **But this part of the story is not over yet! Revenge hasn't aired at all in Danni's world. We'll have to see what happens next!**


	16. Chapter 16

**So, let's see how Danni's settled back into ordinary life before we skip to her All-Stars season! Thanks for reviewing, OmniPlanckInstant, Liz The Sweet Writer, yeezynight14, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, Pokemon FTW, Bloodylilcorpse, RebelToasters12 and That British Guy (I thought you might, but I always had Mike win in the planning stage, which also means I have his victory out of the way for All-Stars).**

After roughing it in the cabins for almost four weeks, my bed was what heaven was made of. Ditto my family's home cooking, and even just being in my own house again. It was great to be able to wear clothes other than my jammies and my signature outfit, and I honestly was never happier to see our glass-door shower that responded to turning the handle on to "Hot" straight away and didn't respond to the other taps in the bathroom.

The season was set to premiere in a month, when summer ended. However, the rest of the squad had finished cheer camp and plagued me with questions about the show. They'd been looking at every sneak peek they could find. Online, there was everyone's auditions. I was pretty interested to see them too. I learned a lot more about some of the contestants, and other stuff. Mike mentioned his psychiatrist in his audition, and then said something about a do-over. Zoey talked about her small town and how her worst nightmare on the show would be to get voted off by a jock. Did cheerleaders count as jocks? Anne Maria said she decided to audition after her friends made her watch a World Tour episode. Dakota stated that Total Drama was her jumping-off point for becoming a big star. Dawn had already told me what she'd do with the money, but she said it again in her audition tape. B just showed off a bunch of his inventions. Jo suggested the producers just give her the money because no one could be better than her. Yeah, stuff like that.

I saw my friends too, of course. Zoey lived further away than most of him, but we Skyped, and she seemed to be happier than usual. I think a lot of it had to do with Mike, but she said that she'd started getting to know a few people in her town who were more into indie stuff like her, people in her high school who had escaped her notice. But I occasionally went over to Dawn's treehouse. She liked mostly to be alone with her animal friends, but if I let her know I was over, she was OK with it. Sometimes B came too. I preferred it when he did, because Dawn could translate for him. Even though we knew he could talk, he just wouldn't.

Lightning, luckily, lived only half an hour away from me, so we went out frequently. We'd met each others' parents and saw each other at least once a week. Well, twice. We'd go out on dates, but on one other day of the week Lightning would insist on driving over to do sports training, just like he'd promised on the island. I put up with it, because if I did what he said for an hour, we could spend double that time cuddling and talking up in my room. Totally worth it.

I invited the whole squad to a sleepover the night of the premiere, promising that once they had seen the whole cast, I'd dish everything about them. I actually invited Anne Maria, but she said she was going to be doing the same thing with her girlfriends.

After the one episode, the twelve of us went up to my room and started talking.

"I have _so_ got to get on that show." said one of the sophomores with a sigh. "It would be a way to get away from..." she trailed off.

"From what?" chimed in one of the other sophomores, who seemed to know her better than the other girls. "From us? Is that what you were going to say?"

We all laughed.

"Come on, Danni!" said one of the other girls. "Start talking! Tell us more about the ones you hate. Which ones are they again? The boy with the red hair and the girl in the tracksuit, right?"

As the episodes continued, the questions at school started flying thick and fast. Zoey had told me the kids at her school were doing the same thing. Lucky Dawn was homeschooled, so she only got questions from city cousins and the few non-animal friends she had scattered around.

As for the episodes? Well, Ronan being the Total Drama fan he was, made me watch all of them with him. Not that he had to – I was watching my performance very carefully to see if there was anything someone might ask me about.

In Episode 5, the whole thing with Scott trying to get Dawn out was shown in full, as well as me accusing him and yet offering to give him another chance.

The other important thing to look at was the confessionals. I was wondering who the other contestants talked about. Zoey and Mike's confessionals were mostly about each other. Mike had a few about worrying about his other personalities messing things up for him, but the ones that weren't were all focused on Zoey. Brick, on the other hand, talked about several things: Teamwork, the competition, being scared of the dark, and Jo – speaking of which, I couldn't believe it when Chris suggested at their second elimination (when Brick joined our team) that they kiss and make up. So I guess I wasn't the first one to sense that chemistry.

Lightning mostly talked about the competition. He only started talking about me in the sixth episode, when he said " _The yeti looked kinda good, really! Those judges don't know nothing about fashion!"_ Then he sighed and said " _Okay...Danni wasn't the best at fashion on the team. But that doesn't mean she's not the only one on Lightning's team that isn't a loser! Except for me, of course!"_

That made me smile. Not being a loser was high praise.

I liked the earlier episodes better than the ones after the merge. I guess it was just fun to see more of everyone. Because the merge brought everyone together, I'd seen it all. It was nice to see how the Maggots worked together.

And guess what? Chris complained during the semifinals, just because Zoey, Mike and I wanted to work together. But he was pleased I won, because he didn't want the most innocent sweetheart couple to play nice in the finale, and at least there was some suspense as to who I took to the finale. Even then, he'd expected me to choose Zoey.

Overall, I never regretted going on Total Drama Revenge Of The Island. I mean, think about it. I made great friends, I got a boyfriend, and I survived. I got to do so many things, too – swing into a giant mitt, dress a yeti, make and fly a rocket, and even outrun a sentient Venus Flytrap. I'm betting there's very few people in the world who could claim to have done all those things (and if you wanted proof, my rocket ended up in the water, but I still have what's left of it at home).

Well, yeah, like I said, I didn't regret going on there. Until one day, next year, when I got that email. But if you want to know about that, you'll have to read the next story. Until then, this is Danni Kramer, signing out!

 **Yes, this is the end of Danni's Revenge story. But it's not over til' it's over, and Danni has another shot at the million in her next story. So look out for it, because it'll be coming at you very, very soon. Like now!**


End file.
